The Light in the Dark
by VampireUnicorn
Summary: Ryou Bakura wishes away his mistakes. Well, be careful what you wish for! Now he’s trapped in a world ruled by an insane sadist who makes brutal massacres. Vampire violence, Bakura/Yami Bakura, and Bakura/Pegasus. F I N I S H E D ! ! ! !
1. The Discovery

            Authoress's Notes: Okay. I have a few things to say.

One: This is a really dark fic. A lot of things happen in here that might not agree with some people. I have seen about five episodes so far and read a lot of fanfics. After reading all of them, I decided that Pegasus wasn't represented well. I mean, the guy is a total bishi! That Eye might knock him down a point, but he is still really cute. I happen to enjoy discovering what makes people evil. So I decided what I wanted in my Dream Fic. This fanfic is everything I personally would desire in one. I have incorporated some of what I have read, stuff that made a lasting impression, such as the idea of vampires in the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" world. 

Two: This fanfic has light to mild yaoi, but it doesn't really go past kissing and hugging. It also has something I call "vampire-related violence," meaning blood, torture (mental and physical), and the blur between good and evil.

Three: I don't own "Yu-Gi-Oh." Some tiny shards are based on other things I have read about this series, but I have warped everything to my own fiendish desires. But please keep in mind that I don't own any series I wish to invoke! This is just a creative outlet! 

Four: Thank you for reading my notes, and now sit back and enjoy my insanity!

            For some reason, the author of this story was angry, very angry. She debated it for some time – yes, it seemed that it could be futile to do this – but then again, who else was there to do it? It was her burden. She, the girl who read psychology books to search for answers to the real mysteries, who would sit there and listen to Pegasus talk until the world was gone. There had to be some reason for all of it, right?

            Then there was that episode where Yami Bakura, who she referred to as Fallen, as it was much shorter and therefore easier to write. You didn't see Fallen die. 

            The desire to write the story grew and grew until she could no longer bear it. The words finally came, coursing out of her soul like so much blood, all the tears and the hatred and the darkness and the light until she was finally free.

            This story would be for the lovers of the dark side. Pegasus, Fallen, Yami… every dark side. It is just so… crude to hate a character without even trying to figure out the why. Maybe it could be what she needed…

            And maybe bend reality to her will… change things… 

            Fate Légend had just defeated him in a duel. He quaked and jumped down from the terminal; she got down as well and took the star chips from him. Eyes masked, totally pretending he didn't want to hurt her, his eyes concealing the fact that he had snapped, even though she could see through him like an osprey seeing through water.

            "You've won your last duel," he said softly, his eyes becoming mad, his gestures feral, and she backed up.

            Before the girl could react, he pushed her with all of his strength. It made him fall to the ground, but it didn't matter. She fell to the ocean and tasted blood in her mouth as she fell. Then she decided to change the situation and tried to make at least a dive.

            Seconds after impact, she came out of the water with a hearty glare at the one who pushed her off. Even though she was at least a hundred feet below him, she could hear a faint laughing coming from him.

            She didn't know when she felt something brush up against her ankle. She looked down in the water and tried to feebly glance into the darkness, but it was no use. She felt a tugging at her ankle and she screamed as she was sucked into the water. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't see anything, and there was something at her chest. She felt a gnawing presence and saw a blinding gold light.

            Then everything went black.

            They had been laughing until they heard the scream. It was quickly cut off, but the resulting silence was unshakable. 

            "I am assuming that the rest of you heard that?" Bakura asked. It was right after their duel in the Shadow Realm.

            "Yes, we all heard it."

            i Bakura… /i He felt a little uneasy from the sudden voice and wondered, but then again, Fallen had died, hadn't he? There was no way he could have returned.

            He sat there quietly for a few moments as the rest debated on what had just happened. Bakura wasn't listening to them at all; their voices were just a futile babble. Instead, he was focusing inward, trying to figure out where he was in all of this. Could he risk friends when he might get them hurt? Should he take the chance?

            "Bakura, have you been listening to anything?" Téa. He looked into her eyes. "Are you sure you're okay after what's happened?"

            "I'm fine," he replied absently. He hadn't heard a word.

            Yugi's forehead began to glow. Bakura felt slightly sick as he saw the change from Yugi to Yami occur; he felt like he might lose the last meal he had… come to think of it, when had he last eaten? He hadn't been hungry at all since he found the Millennium Ring. Come to think of it, a lot of other things had changed as well. What exactly happened when he found it? He couldn't remember anything but a warm, pleasant feeling at his lips and a sharp, cruel pain…

            iYes, that's it, Bakura, figure things out for yourself. You obviously don't want or need my help anymore. /i Fallen's acidic whisper was very unnerving; he had said the same thing dozens of times. Was it a memory, or was he really speaking?

            "What's wrong with Bakura?" Yami asked offhandedly. "He looks like he is going to get sick!"

            Joey looked at Bakura strangely. "What, beach-combing tomorrow doesn't sound good to you?"

            "It's fine. I was just thinking about something else." He tried to smooth back his white hair, but it didn't really work.

            Yami continued their conversation. "We can't find anything in the dark, but I am pretty sure that whatever happened was coming from the cliffs. We can find clues."

            Bakura wondered why everyone seemed so afraid of the dark. He could see better in the dark than he could in the light. The night seemed… beautiful, lethal, comforting… his energy was always higher in the nighttime.

            "Meeting dismissed. Get some sleep."

            Bakura was floating in midair, right outside Pegasus's castle. Without a single thought, he was inside. The sleeping form of Pegasus was in a really plush bed, propped up against the pillows. He was holding a stuffed calico cat that looked like it may have been around for twenty years. 

            Briefly, the dream Bakura tried to remember everything he could about Pegasus. The twenty-four-year-old was a genius that had graduated from school at twelve and got through college by the age of seventeen. He was super-rich and his mother was a successful archaeologist. She brought him to Egypt as a gift for graduating from college. Then he made the card game and it had escalated to the most popular thing in history for adults and children since… well, since the last most popular thing.

            Pegasus shifted slightly in his sleep. Bakura was aware of a burning sensation inside him, centering on his stomach area. His mouth also hurt. He had never felt anything like this hunger before. Pegasus's neck glistened in the moonlight. Trembling with hunger and fear, Bakura turned away, but the hunger grew until he felt like he would go mad if it didn't. He smelled blood in the room.

            He found himself sitting on the bed very close to Pegasus. The man's veins were burning through his skin… oh… the blood…

            Bakura awoke with a start. It was still night; the sleeping forms of his friends were all there… wait… where was Yugi? He got up and searched through his mind. Where could Yugi go? Then he was up and running so fast that he was like a blur. He moved through the forest or the forest moved through him; it was impossible to tell. He was standing next to Yugi, who was kneeling beside a girl on the beach. Bakura knelt down beside his friend – where had that word come from? – and put his hand on the girl's wrist.

            "She's so cold," he said to Yugi. 

            Yugi nodded. "We have to get her to the camp. She'll die otherwise. Her pulse is very, very faint."

            Bakura lifted her up and let her stiff form rest gently in his arms. He felt a stab of hunger that was reminiscent of the dream, but ignored it. After all, it was only a dream, wasn't it? They walked back to the camp in silence and stripped the girl of her wet clothes, hung them up to dry, and went into Téa's bag for some clothes. He dressed her, having no feelings for the girl, whereas Yugi felt guilty. Then they wrapped her in blankets and Bakura forfeited his place by the fire to let her lie there.

            "Bakura?" Yugi whispered. "Why are you up this late?"

            He wondered how long it would take him to spin a lie. "I heard you leave and I was curious as to where you were going."

            "Good night, Bakura."

            "Good night."

            As he had forfeited his blankets, he sat against the tree, just outside the fire's glow. The tree felt more comfortable, anyway. Soon, he was fast asleep.

            He awoke to a fierce prodding. "Bakura, I'll bet you'll never guess what happened last night!" Joey's eyes were dancing.

            Bakura let out a groan. It took him a few moments to adjust to sunlight. He didn't know why they were waking him up at such an absurd hour. He usually slept until afternoon on this island.

            "Pegasus almost died last night. They sent the helicopter over here and everything. He had an emergency blood transfusion sometime around one or two this morning. He won't let anyone come in the room but the nurse and he refused to abandon his work. They say that an hour after typing away at his laptop, he'd fainted and needed another blood transfusion."

            Bakura felt his face turn chalk-white. "What?" he asked.

            His friends saw his concern. Joey looked at him strangely. "You don't have any sentimental feelings for that creep, do you?"

            "No." He was getting really good at this lying thing. "It just seems unbelievable that something could happen like this. I mean, the guy is totally insane!"

            The conversation came to a halt when a low moan came from the girl by the fire. She slowly moved and made a low hacking sound. Up came a lot of water and some food she had ingested. She looked around with a dazed expression on her face.

            "Where am I?" she asked. "Never mind, stupid question…" Her eyes were moving from wrist to wrist.

            Téa sat down next to her, mildly disgusted by the vomit, but still there. "What happened to you?"

            "This kid lost a duel and he just snapped mentally. He threw me off a cliff. I can swim, but something grabbed my leg and pulled me under. The last thing I remember is a brilliant gold light. I thought I died."

            "Who were you dueling against?"

            "A kid named Nathan Greenseye."

            Bakura looked up. "Nathan Greenseye? We dueled and he lost; I felt kind of bad for him, you know. He just started crying."

            The girl got up shakily and almost fell into what was left of the fire. Téa, always the helper, steadied her. She locked eyes with Bakura and the strangest thing in the world happened. He felt the familiar presence of Fallen inside him, brilliant and like he had never gone. He saw the Millennium Ring glow slightly; it was pointing at her. He crossed his arms to hide it.

            They were too absorbed in the girl to pay attention, anyway.

            "What's your name?" Téa asked. "I'm Téa. The kid with the white hair is Bakura. The short guy is Yugi. Then there's Joey with the blondish hair and Tristan with the brown hair."

            "Fate Légend." Her last name was almost French in the way it was pronounced, and it rolled off her tongue like blood flowing down – wait, what was he thinking? He shook his head free of those thoughts. 

            Fate was an attractive, tall girl. Her long, flowing brown hair almost glowed in the sunlight. She had black eyes and a light tan, and she was about an inch taller than Téa. Bakura's eyes studied her calmly, and they fell to her neck. It took most of his control to pull his eyes away from that neck.

            "Bakura?" Yugi asked. His voice sounded very concerned. "You look a little pale. Are you sick?"

            "No." Bakura didn't want to talk about it. 

            He didn't feel like talking at all.

            That night, he fell asleep, but somewhere around midnight his hunger awakened him. He felt like he was on fire. He curled up into a little ball and tried to fall asleep, but the hunger wouldn't stop. 

            He could hear the beating hearts of everyone in the camp. They teased at his hunger and he covered his ears, begging it to stop, but his hunger wouldn't cooperate. He imagined he heard Fallen somewhere close by, talking to him. But it wasn't his imagination.

            "Bakura," Fallen whispered in his ear. "You have to listen to me. You need sustenance. If you don't, you will die." 

            He was in too much pain to say no.

            "Good. Now do exactly as I say…"

            Maxamillion Pegasus was in a really depressed mood. He clutched the stuffed cat, the only remnant of his dead father's love, and shivered underneath the covers. He had never been sick in his life, and the dark powers of his Millennium Eye couldn't make him well again. He felt his life force deteriorating with every hour.

            It frightened him. Something frightened Maxamillion Pegasus. He was afraid of dying, of all the things he couldn't undo consuming his soul as soon as his heart stopped beating and his mind went on. He had stumbled on the power by accident, and he had fought for years to control its power.

            Life really had no meaning for Pegasus. He could have all the riches in the world. He owned so much and he was the role model of many young children. But what was the meaning of it all? Then, when he was about eighteen, he had gone into the thing alone, with only the knowledge he had learned in school. He had fought his way into the final room and opened the carrier of the Items. All were gone but one. The eye… how it had turned on him then… and it had hurt…

            He cringed, remembering the pain. His mother was the first soul he had stolen, and then he felt better. The numbness that accompanied it soothed him. It made him cold and unemotional. But he needed more of them now to keep the numbness. There were the comics when he was feeling down, the cartoons he had trusted since he was a young child because he was a genius and no one ever wanted him for a friend. 

            Then there was college. Oh Gods, he would do anything to forget that… his roommate was throwing a party. He got drunk with his friends and one of them took him, even though he had been studying the whole time, and raped him, though he hadn't been forced to take his pants off… that had been the final straw. 

            Pegasus was unaware that he was crying until his hand brushed across his face. The Millennium Eye was cold and unemotional, but his real eye showed the agony he was in. Living from day to day, wanting and waiting for the paralyzing numbness that froze his heart to wear off and he had to steal another soul to make it go away. 

            Bakura climbed into Pegasus's room. He looked at the sobbing form on the bed. For so long he had let himself think that Pegasus was cruel, cold, and unemotional. He seemed to live off others' suffering. He fed on their pain and anguish. Humiliation was his desert. And yet… he was crying?

            Bakura wondered how he would appear to Pegasus. His skin had flushed until it was the color it normally was. Why had Fallen kept it a secret from him for so long? 

            He made a small amount of noise, and Pegasus immediately looked up. "Whoever you are, go away!" he said softly. Then he saw Bakura.

            Instead of listening, Bakura walked over to the bed and sat down next to Pegasus. He put an arm on his shoulder and smiled at him. Though it may have been the blood he had stolen from Pegasus, he felt a sort of kinship with him, and since Pegasus hadn't registered his presence, he knew the emotion wasn't faked. 

            Pegasus looked up at Bakura with a startled expression. Bakura's face softened and he flashed Pegasus a smile that would make a heart of stone tremble. 

            "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked. 

            Over tears, Pegasus told Bakura everything. And when it was all over, Bakura wasn't angry. He watched Pegasus with understanding instead of condemnation. Then he did something to show that he cared. He hugged Pegasus and Pegasus hugged back. 

            "Why did you want to lure the holders of the Millennium Items?"

            Pegasus looked at him. "I don't feel like talking about that right now."

            He felt Fallen's presence in his mind; it was egging him on, telling him to do what he must do. "I'm sorry," he told Pegasus. 

            Bakura was caught in a rush of blood, the taste of Pegasus flowing through his mouth. He was aware of the heart slowing, and as it did he finally realized what he was doing. Though he doubted Pegasus would be a big loss, there was still something about him that he couldn't lose. Maybe it was the way Pegasus laughed, or the sound of his voice, but he didn't want Pegasus to die. As he drank, he realized that everything Pegasus had said was true, and he needed the Millennium Items for one reason.

            Revenge. Oh, how had Bakura been so blind as he listened to Pegasus? The reason was so obvious. The emotion flowed through Pegasus's blood like a lethal poison. He knew that he could make the monsters real, and he wanted to do it so he could bring about the end of the world. 

            If only there were some way to give the blood back… but he needed to hurry, for Pegasus's life was fading fast. And blood was connected directly to life…

            With a small shudder of disgust at what he was about to do, he took the knife out from under Pegasus's pillow (how he knew it was there, nobody knows) and slashed at his neck. He lifted Pegasus up to him and pressed Pegasus's face to the wound. It hurt, and Bakura wished he knew how to make the pain subside, and he was feeling like a part of him was dying with every drop Pegasus drank.

            Finally, it was too much for him to bear, and he threw Pegasus away. Fallen was laughing inside his head, and Bakura finally realized what he had been made to do by his insane, psychopathic dark half. But then again, who really was the dark half? Bakura had been the one taking lives. Bakura had been the real monster.

            He couldn't stand another minute of it. He jumped.

            It rained for the next few days and nights. Bakura was huddled in a tight ball in the underbrush. He was hungry, wet, cold, and tired, but he didn't move. Sometimes he would dream only to awaken screaming. 

            The area around him was one big blur. Sounds all merged together until there was nothing upon nothing and the aroma of night and day were blurred, fading as the rain went on and on with no sign of stopping. 

            Fallen appeared beside Bakura, the former shaking his arm until the latter was conscious enough to hear him. "You're killing yourself, Bakura! Don't you know how pointless it is to fight it?"

            "I don't want to end up like… like…"

            "Like me?"

            Bakura nodded. 

            Fallen shook his head and wrapped his right arm around Bakura as he brushed Bakura's cheek with his left hand. Then he brought his lips in and touched Bakura with them. Bakura's eyes widened. He'd never felt anything like it! His dark half had never kissed him before. He closed his eyes after the initial shock and kissed back, surprised when he hurt his own lip with his fangs.

            "You aren't human, Bakura. You're above them. You were human when I found you and you were human when that vampire drank from you; I don't think you remember it. Just trust me when I say you can relax. Don't kill yourself for nothing. You can't stop the pain or the killing."

            Bakura stood and stretched. Fallen studied his light half with his eyes; though a disappointment at first, Bakura was getting stronger every day. Once he had been so weak that Fallen had barely touched him and he would start crying, but Bakura was maturing, moving faster than lightning.

            One thing was for sure: Bakura would have to learn how to control himself before he got into a rather unpleasant situation.

            Fallen was sorry for the way it had to be done. Every beating, every push-down, even every rotten thing he had ever done was all to build Bakura. 

            "Bakura!" Yugi yelled.

            The one the name belonged to turned around. "Yugi?"

            "Where have you been? We were worried about you. You shouldn't have gone like that!" he scolded.

            Bakura honestly wondered why Yugi had worried. "You know me. I had to go for a walk. Couldn't sleep. Then I got lost."

            That wasn't exactly a lie… he still didn't know where he was…

            Téa looked hurt, more hurt than Bakura could have withstood a few days ago. Instead of sympathizing, he ignored her. Yugi and Bakura locked eyes and neither backed down. Bakura felt someone breaking into his mind, and he instantly slammed a mental fist into whoever it was out of instinct. Ever since he was a little child, he'd been able to feel people entering his mind, and he dealt with it in the same way all the time. 

            Yugi doubled over as if he'd been punched in the stomach. 

            Joey clenched his fists and stood in front of Yugi, his face a mask of pure hatred and disgust. "What have you done to Yugi?" he demanded.

            Bakura looked into Joey's eyes brazenly. "I did nothing. He did it to himself." 

            He felt guilty about what he had just said. There was Yugi, looking so helpless, clutching his stomach. Bakura closed his eyes and willed the images away. Accusations from Téa; he could not keep her voice out of his head. He could feel the presence of Joey, clearly defined by his anger, and he knew when Joey's fist moved to hit him.

            After opening his eyes, he found himself holding Joey's fist. It was obvious that Joey had just flung himself at Bakura; how could he, with no experience whatsoever, hold a punch from a kid who knew how to street fight? He took a step to the side and felt something else this time. Yugi's presence had gone and there was Yami to deal with. 

            "Bakura!" Yami yelled. The others encircled him like predators coming in from the kill. The girl, Fate – she wasn't there.

            He saw Yami's hand rise as if pulled; he took a step back and looked at all of the faces of the people he trusted so long ago. Yami's forehead was glowing and Bakura felt terrified. He was running before he had even made the decision to run, and Yami was following him, though he couldn't match Bakura's speed. 

            Bakura rammed into something and fell on his butt. Two men in suits were standing in front of him with their arms crossed. He did half a crab-walk backward before deciding against it. After debating on what would be better, he decided to stand up and face them. 

            "Bakura. Mr. Pegasus would like to have a few words with you."

            They grabbed him by the shoulders and he pretended to struggle, and a flabbergasted Yami watched them take him away.


	2. The Wish

            Authoress's Note: Okay. By the way, this is my first fic on FF.net. If stuff doesn't turn out right, _please give me something constructive that will help me. Thanks. : - )_

                        Disclaimer still applies. I don't own "Yu-Gi-Oh!" and probably never will.

            By the way, Pegasus, Yami Bakura, and Bakura are my favorite characters on the show. Just thought you might want to know. Oh, and I also like reading psychology books. I find Pegasus fascinating.

            I hope you like the continuation of this fic. More is on the way. This story is all I can think about. And I have no idea how it will end.

            Pegasus had his back to Bakura. It was dark in the room. All the shades were drawn, and only a think crack of light dared to shine into the room. Pegasus had lit a solitary white candle. He was moving his hands for some reason and standing near one of the curtains. Bakura thought he saw the green leaves of a plant peek out every thirty seconds. 

            The silence was deafening.

            After what seemed like forever, Pegasus spoke. His voice was controlled, emotionless, but Bakura could see through him. 

            "What have you done?"

            Bakura remained silent, aware of the slight prodding at his mind. He ignored the prodding, knowing that his shields were way above Pegasus's Millennium Eye. Slowly, Pegasus turned around, and Bakura's mental storm of emotions and thoughts intensified. Over all of his thoughts was a small, feeble whisper in his mind. It was not Fallen; it was a thought that had just popped in: I wonder what it would be like to kiss—

            He pushed it away before it could even complete itself. 

            "I know you did something to me."

            Gently, Bakura prodded at Pegasus's emotions. The flood that resulted was almost too much for him to bear. He felt Pegasus's pain, confusion, fear, and then the worst thing of all: hunger. He realized that Pegasus had no idea what to do and took a step back. How was he supposed to know what he had done to Pegasus?

            "It's driving me mad," Pegasus said softly.

            "Only hunger," he replied in a whisper. "Nothing more than that."

            "But the food has no substance. The wine has no taste. It doesn't stop it. You know what I need to do."

            "Yes."

            "Then tell me."

            "Bring someone in, preferably someone you are not attached to," Bakura said quietly, wondering if he was doing the right thing. 

            Several seconds later, the door opened and closed. A tall man in a suit came in, but what had Bakura expected? He closed his eyes and made his way over to Pegasus's employee. I bit his neck and bled him just enough for the scent of blood to reach Pegasus.

            "Oh Gods…" Pegasus said. He grabbed the curtain with a determination I had never seen in my life. His natural eye was wide. "You don't expect me to—

            I looked at him meaningfully. "Pegasus, it's no different than what you do with that damned Eye."

            "But… at least then the body is still alive!"

            "You have ordered people to be killed before."

            "But…"

            "Just do it. I thought you were supposed to be some maniacal psychopath! After all you've done, you shouldn't even feel guilty!"

            "But—

            Bakura was aware of Fallen laughing at him. _It's really nice, isn't it, being on the other side for once? Now you know how I feel when I have to deal with you! _

            Deciding that Pegasus's newly developed morals were a pain, Bakura reached out and grabbed Pegasus by the neck with one hand and shoved the dazed guard at him with the other. He turned away, greeted by the smell of fresh blood and a small moan from Pegasus. Listening to that was _really disturbing. _

            He sat down in a chair and closed his eyes, wishing he were somewhere else, wishing that Fallen hadn't decided to take revenge for what had happened. Yet, despite all his resentment toward his dark half, he felt the lips pressed so gently upon his own and that caring, sensitive whisper that he had to get up. Fallen… cared? 

            Over his troubled thoughts, he was aware of someone close by crying.

            Yami wanted blood. Now. When he was Pharaoh, he maimed, killed, tortured… anything to sate his temper for just another few weeks. He hadn't felt that way since he killed Fallen. And Bakura was making him nervous; how could he run that fast? It made no sense at all; could that be Fallen instead of Bakura? It didn't seem unlikely, in fact, it seemed very probable. Fallen knew everything about Bakura, and they were so similar in appearance that you could hardly tell them apart.

            Why had Pegasus taken him?

            "Hey, are you okay there? You're not looking too hot." Joey.

            "I'm fine." 

            "Hey, if there's anything you want to talk about, I'm here, right with you every step of the way."

            "Thank you."

            "Téa and Tristan went to go find some food with that book. I mean, we have to eat something. I wonder how good the food is in the dungeon Bakura's probably in. Did you see the look on that creep's face when he started running? I really showed him who's the boss, didn't I, Yugi?"

            Yami sighed. The fact that he wasn't really Yugi was still above Joey. Besides, only Yugi and Bakura knew what he liked to be called, and Yugi was asleep in his soul room at the moment. He had been tired lately, tired and hurt all because of Bakura. Or Fallen. It depended on who you thought was in that head.

            Deep down, Yami knew Bakura had been terrified when he took control. He knew Bakura wouldn't have cringed at Joey; his dark half was merciless and, at times, abusive. 

            "I don't know, Joey, I really don't," he replied. "It seems so odd."

            "Yeah, that little creep was pretty darn near crying when we got done with him. We probably put him in his place. He deserves whatever Pegasus is doing to him up in that castle. Isn't that right, Yugi?"

            No response.

            "Yugi?"

            His light side replaced the darker Yami quickly, as Yami didn't trust himself to keep quiet about a few things, and Yugi was just sitting there with his eyes open like some sort of zombie.

            Joey backed away from him. "I guess you need some time to yourself. Yugi, you need some time to accept that not everyone's good. Some people are born rotten."

            Yugi pulled his knees up to his chin and looked at the setting sun. He whispered, "Bakura," to the coming night and buried his head in his hands. Lately, he had just been so tired. He wanted to sleep…

            …And woke up somewhere around two in the morning.

            There was a darkened figure sitting just outside the camp. Yugi got to his feet and ran towards the person, carefully quiet. "Bakura."

            "I'm sorry, Yugi. I let you guys down."

            "Why did you go away? What happened up at Pegasus's castle?"

            "There are some things that you're not ready to know yet, Yugi. I came here to warn you."

            "Warn me of what?" He felt like this had happened before.

            "The world isn't just in black and white. There are shades in between."

            "Bakura, I don't understand."

            "Watch your back. I can't protect you forever, and sooner or later you're going to have to choose."

            "Choose what?"

            Bakura seemed to melt into the shadows. Yugi was, for the first time in his life, terrified. He tried to grab Bakura and save his friend from the darkness; how could someone so beautiful and light fade away so suddenly?

            "Bakura!" he screamed. "Bakura!"

            His screams ripped everyone from really good dreams.

            "Yugi! What are you screaming about?"

            "Bakura was here…"

            Téa and Joey were pale, while Tristan had fallen asleep again, trying to immerse himself back in his dream about Mai. 

            "What happened?" Téa, reasonable, faithful Téa.

            Yugi felt a presence in his mind suddenly, not invading, but there all the same. A voice told him to keep quiet.

            "I thought I saw Bakura. He said something to me, but then he disappeared."

            Joey looked at him. "I know you're taking his betrayal really hard, but you don't have to wake us up every time you have a nightmare about him. Face it. Bakura doesn't care about us at all!"

            Yugi thought he saw tears in Joey's eyes, but Joey walked away before he could ask. Téa hugged Yugi and smiled at him.

            "Yugi, I'm really sorry about what happened with Bakura. I know how you feel about him; you can't hide it from me. I don't think he shared the same feelings for you. I think it might be the time to move on. If you keep your mind in the past, you'll miss all the beauty around you."

            "Okay, Téa."

            She smiled at him again and put her lips close to his ear. "Besides, I think Joey is a little jealous." She was whispering so softly that he thought he heard her wrong.

            After she went back to bed, Yugi decided he needed some sleep. He settled down and felt himself nearing sleep. A familiar presence smoothed his hair and laid down beside him. He opened his eyes and looked into the dark eyes set in the pale face, chocolate orbs in a statue carved from vanilla. 

            The last words he heard were, "I'm sorry." Then he abandoned himself to dreams.

            Bakura eased himself to his feet, careful not to disturb Yugi. He walked away from their small camp, keeping the memories at bay. Never had he felt so lost and alone; he couldn't face what he had done to Pegasus. He couldn't get close to Yugi.

            "For some reason, I find the mental pain you are putting yourself through very unnecessary."

            "Leave me alone."

            Fallen brushed his hand across Bakura's cheek. "No."

            Bakura felt the hot tears well up in his eyes, and he started to cry. Before he could do much of anything, there was a sharp pain on his cheek. His eyes widened and he saw Fallen's hand poised for another slap. It sent him into the tree.

            "Don't cry. I won't have it."

            He wiped the tears off his light's face. Bakura cringed and smelled hot, sticky blood; there was a wet feeling on the back of his head. Surprisingly, he didn't feel much pain. The more he tried to find where it hurt, the number the area was.

            "Don't hurt me."

            He braced himself for another assault, but instead was hugged. What surprised him even more was that he hugged back. 

            They were sitting on the forest floor, hugging, when Pegasus decided it was the perfect time to show up. He felt very embarrassed and tried to hide in the shadows, but when you're as tall and beautiful as he is, it is kind of hard for others not to notice.

            Fallen noticed first. He looked up at Pegasus and growled. "Do you mind?"

            Pegasus's face went beet red. "Um…" he began, and then started blabbering like an idiot. Well, if anyone else had come upon the two snuggling, they would have been blithering idiots, too. "I wasn't… I didn't mean…"

            Bakura looked at him. "If you want to remain on everyone's good side, I advise you to be a good boy and do exactly what he says."

            Pegasus shut his mouth and ran.

            "Now, where were we…" Fallen's voice jarred Bakura back to what was going on. "Ah, yes, I remember…"

            Fallen and Bakura kissed.

            "I wish none of this had ever happened," he said sometime around dawn. "I know it had to happen, but I wish this wasn't…"

            "I know what you're talking about. You really wish it hadn't happened, that it hadn't ended this way?"

            "Yes."

            Fallen looked up and grinned. "We're going to the Shadow Realm."

            Bakura waited silently as his dark half knocked. He knocked three times fast, two times slow, and did five knocks in something that reminded him of syncopation. Bakura almost wet himself when he saw who opened the door.

            It was the Reaper. And it spoke.

            "Hey, Yami Bakura. Oh, that's right! You've assumed the name Fallen!" A girl's voice, southern accent. She took off her hood and the skeleton mask. 

            "So, what do you want? I was about ready to get out and reap some cards in the graveyard, but I guess that can wait an hour or two. It's not like they can go anywhere."

            "You're a girl?" Bakura asked.

            "You can't expect me to change gender just because of my job!"

            He felt very, very stupid.

            Fallen decided to mend what he had done. "So, where's your husband at?"

            "Oh, Death's always busy. I swear that he needs some sort of helper in his job. Too much on him. He needs a nice vacation. Pretty soon, our son will go out and help him, but I don't think that's going to be enough. So, what do you want?"

            "You know."

            "Yes, and you know that I can't change it once it happens."

            Fallen nodded. "Erase his memory of this, at least make it seem like a dream, and make things like this had never happened."

            She brought them into the house. "And what does the socially graced vampire have to say about this?"

            "Please."

            "Well, I guess that's good enough."

            She murmured some words. Everything went black.

            They say that Yugi's forehead glowed when the final words were spoken and that a great wave came and tried to crush the island, carrying the hopes and dreams of many with it. 

            The author wouldn't end this story without a lot of pain and discovery. Nothing could end like that. But the spell did close the first chapter of Bakura's life.

            Thus, Fallen was no more and was Yami Bakura.

            But the world was far from well off.


	3. Be Careful What You Wish For

            Authoress's Note: Okay! Here is the next chapter! 

                        Disclaimer still applies, as do all the old warnings of content. 

            This chapter was a little harder to write than the first two, as it deals with the aftermath of Bakura's wish. I do not mean to offend any fans of Yugi, Joey, Téa… *list goes on and on* Well, it does increase the overall mood of the fic, now doesn't it? 

            Thank you for sticking with me. : - ) I really appreciate it.

            The alarm clock woke him with a screech. He picked it up and hurdled it into the wall. His head hurt so bad that the room spun when he finally decided he was awake enough to venture forth from the blankets of sleep. 

            _That_ had been the worst dream he had had in his entire life. Not intense enough for nightmare status, and yet too horrible to be qualified as a dream.

            He dragged himself to the bathroom and did his business, then looked at the bathroom mirror. It swam in his vision, so he reached up and grabbed it. Advil. Tylenol. He needed something for that headache. What was he talking about? He grabbed some fast-acting painkiller, wondering where those names had come from. They sounded like some kinds of monsters from a really bad horror movie.

            After his vision cleared, he looked at himself in the mirror. It took the last of his hairspray to tame that mass of hair, and he threw the empty can in the trash. Some eyeliner and his appearance would be perfect. He could put on eyeliner without anyone knowing it was eyeliner. That's why he had such nicely defined eyes.

            As fast as he could, he got into his school uniform, realizing that he had to be there in less than fifteen minutes. Where did he get such a headache? He put another dosage of the fast-acting painkiller in his pocket in case he needed it.

            The Millennium Ring glowed under his school-issued undershirt. Quickly, he put the jacket over it. It was against school policy for boys to wear anything other than a watch, as he had learned on the first day of school. The collar of his shirt hid the string the Item was hanging from. And, no matter how hard he tried, the magical gold would never, ever come off.

            He found himself running to school, and the bell rang just as he sat down. Two kids were just finishing up their game of duel monsters. They hastily put the game away so they wouldn't get caught, even though their history teacher was the one who invented the game. The guy would not shut up about Egypt.

            Sometimes, Bakura wondered why a guy so rich was teaching.

            They all stood up as he entered the room, their voices all chanting the same, "Good morning, Professor Pegasus."

            "Sit down."

            Bakura let his mind wander. He already knew everything that was being taught; he had no idea why, but Egyptian history was in his blood. On all the tests, his score was perfect; he even got the extra credit correct.

            It had been a thousand years since the fall of what the textbooks referred to as a "futile system called democracy" and resulted in a worldwide dictatorship. There was a long list of rules you had to obey, and those who were caught disobeying them were never heard from again. They got a letter in the mail and sometime later that day people showed up at their homes and took them away. 

            Once, they had even showed up in his classroom to take away an entire family. A really nice kid named Joey had been taken, and from another class his sister. His mother had been teaching on the third floor, and they murdered her when she refused to cooperate. And it had been in front of kindergarteners. 

            "Bakura! Are you going to answer my question or are you going to sit there staring at the trees?"

            "Huh?"

            "Who was Cleopatra?"

            "She was the last Queen of Egypt."

            Pegasus looked at him strangely. "Bakura, I would like to speak with you after class."

            "Okay."

            He let his mind wander again, this time on the subject of his eccentric teacher. In an age where everyone was supposed to conform, Pegasus did whatever he could to do to make himself different. He almost always had the shades down unless it was a cloudy day, and then it had to be very cloudy. He wore ruffled shirts under his suits and he had heard from someone that Pegasus collected wine glasses.

            No wonder he had that freaky dream last night. Pegasus was fuel for everyone's nightmares and dreams, especially that long hair that only showed half his face.

            The bell shook Bakura out of his thoughts. He was usually fully attentive in Egyptian History. What had happened to make him space out?

            "Bakura."

            He stood up and walked to the desk. Pegasus was sitting down, holding his pen in his left hand. "Yes, Professor Pegasus?"

            "I know you are having doubts about our government after hearing about Ancient Egypt, Bakura."

            "Yes."

            "You are aware of the danger in that, aren't you? It would be wise of you to mask your thoughts next time. Do you play Duel Monsters?"

            "No."

            Pegasus smiled at him. "I think you would enjoy it. Here is a complimentary deck from me. And do try to pay attention in class next time, okay?"

            "Thank you, Professor Pegasus."

            He replied with a sharp nod. "Now go to your next class or you'll be late."

            Bakura felt the warm glow of the Millennium Ring, though it was almost impossible to tell it was glowing, and took a step back. Then he got out of the room as fast as he could. 

            As always, Bakura was sitting alone at lunch. He never ate the school food, and he didn't have much of an appetite. Nobody ever noticed him in the lunch room, as they were all wrapped up in their own conversations.

            If Bakura actually needed to eat, he would not have eaten anyway. There was a strange feeling of dread inside him, almost like the universe was about ready to swallow him whole. Sickened, he swallowed.

            The cafeteria doors burst open and two men in black suits came in. Every conversation came to a halt. Every eye in the room was focused on the two men. Their legs moved and as they walked by, some people breathed sighs of relief, glad that it wasn't them. The two men stopped at a table behind a girl with brown hair and brown eyes. Bakura didn't know her, but she was in his class.

            One of the men grabbed her and pulled her out of her seat. She gasped and started to cry. "Téa, we would like you to come with us."

            "You'll never take me alive!" She kicked the one that held her and started running. The other took out a gun and aimed. He fired at her and she fell down, clutching at her lower leg. Bakura closed his eyes.

            They dragged the hysterical girl out of the room.

            Conversation came back like nothing had happened.

            He was aware of someone watching him, and he slowly looked in Pegasus's direction. Pegasus was staring at him, and he wasn't blinking.

            "So, what's your name?"

            Bakura jumped. There was a really short kid standing there with a food tray. The smell of the stuff they served made him feel sick to his stomach.

            "Bakura."

            "I'm Yugi. It's nice to meet you. Do you mind if I sit with you?"

            "No, not at all."

            They sat through about fifteen minutes of dead silence. 

            "So, what did Pegasus want to talk to you about?"

            Bakura briefly wondered how the kid knew, and then realized that he was talking to one of the Duel Monsters fanatics he knew. A lot of people liked the game, but he remembered that several kids had formed a before-school club. Yugi was in it, and he was also one of Pegasus's favorite students. 

            "Oh, he just wanted to ask me a few questions about what was current in the area I come from. We're natives to the same sector, you know."

            "I see. Do you play Duel Monsters?"

            "I have a deck, but I don't play."

            "Oh."

            Three minutes of silence.

            "You're not as bad as everyone says you are," Yugi said. "Rae thought you were a real snob, you know, because of your high grades and how quiet you always are."

            Bakura was trying to remember how his life had gotten so bad.

            Yugi saw the expression on Bakura's face. "Um… sorry. That sort of slipped out without me meaning it to… I mean, because I…" He decided to change the subject. "So, why aren't you eating anything?"

            "Not hungry."

            "Do you ever eat anything?"

            "No."

            "Do you have a disorder?"

            "No."

            Yugi took the other boy's refusal to answer questions totally as a sign that it was really none of his business, so lunch passed in silence until the bell rang. Then Yugi looked at Bakura, taking pity on the beautiful boy. 

            "Do you want to come to my house tonight?"

            Bakura looked at him. He usually fell asleep as soon as the sun went down, and the sleep would come no matter what. "I'm sorry, Yugi. I have to study."

            "But tomorrow's Saturday!"

            "I know, but my father has strict rules. I'm not allowed outside after dark."

            "What about tomorrow morning?"

            "What time?"

            "Ten."

            "Okay. Where do you want to meet?"

            "The park."

            "So, we're meeting at the park at ten in the morning?"

            "Yup!" Yugi replied. "See you there!"

            Bakura had never had a friend before. This would be the most interesting thing in his entire life.

            _You are so lucky it's not tonight._

            Lately, the voice wouldn't leave Bakura alone. It was always there, even when he didn't want it to be. He gulped. Something happened at night. Sometimes he had dreams and woke up with the blood on his face and hands. Other times, there would be clothing in the trash. Most times, though, he found no evidence.

            The Millennium Ring began to glow as soon as the sun went down. Bakura wondered why, as this had never happened before, and he was still awake. He took that as a bad sign. He ran over to the mirror and looked in.

            "Miss me?" someone asked.

            He turned around and looked at… himself.

            "Who are you?"

            "I am you."

            "No, you can't be me. I am standing right here. You are standing right there."

            Yami Bakura smiled. "You might call me the dark side of yourself. Yami Bakura, if you are fond of names."

            When Bakura didn't answer, he continued. "I think it was really nice of Pegasus to give you those cards. I know him personally."

            "What are you talking about?"

            "Do you really think you're the only one who socializes?" he said as Bakura watched him open a drawer and come out with a tube of no-smear black lipstick. 

            "But… you can't go out there! Curfew is at ten! That's in less than two hours!" Bakura knew he was right. It wasn't legal to be outside of your house until the sun rose.

            Yami Bakura sneered. "That's only for humans, you moron. Entities such as you and I don't need to obey such demeaning laws."

            He put his hand under the mattress and retrieved a black cloak and put it on. He looked eerie with it on, and Bakura shuddered. He tried to make himself invisible, wishing it was a normal night and he had just fallen asleep. Yami Bakura turned toward his light, sensing fear. His fingers were like claws as he lifted Bakura up.

            Bakura tensed and felt like screaming, but his father wouldn't be home from work until nine, and it wasn't like anyone would hear him. He looked at Yami Bakura's mouth and saw two dagger-like fangs where his eyeteeth should have been. He closed his mouth and felt something bite at his own lip, and he realized he was the same as Yami Bakura.

            Yami Bakura held Bakura close to him and whispered in his ear, "Remember, there are no such things as monsters…" 

            The light felt black lips pressed against his own, and it was all he could do not to kiss back. He felt the familiar darkening world, and then there was nothing but a cold, terrifying dream world.

            Pegasus felt the day abate, and, like every other creature of night, he had assumed its guise. Quietly, he lowered himself from his window and crawled down the brick wall. Then, he crept across the yard and jumped onto the fence. His body tensed, and he melded with the shadows. A patrol car crept by, and, as it was searching for humans, it did not notice the predator.

            He jumped off the wall and slithered across the shadows, finding a few more bodies. There was the red-haired Saffron, a tall girl who had been a prostitute when she was still alive. Now, she was above that. He noticed the small form of Rayenne, the child Saffron had made a vampire at the age of seven. She was wearing a black dress. The bottom reminded him of a hoopskirt, but it barely came to her knees.

            Then there was Bakura. He was like a god, cloaked, though his pale skin and ruby red eyes shone through it with a burning intensity. Pegasus wondered why Bakura still went to school and seemed like he didn't remember a thing about his adventures at night with Ambrosia Red, the name of their gang.

            "Are you ready for some action?" Bakura asked them. A renegade vampire, Bakura was one of the most feared faces at night, and as such, the leader of Ambrosia Red. Everyone nodded in response to his question.

            Yet no one even caught on that he was the dark side. They wouldn't ever call him Yami Bakura, not that he wanted them to. It would be so much fun when his light found one of the less quiet members of Ambrosia Red. It would be worse than the shock he had earlier, maybe. He would be forced to recognize his nature.

            Rayenne tugged at Pegasus's leather pants. "Am I special?"

            Pegasus nodded. Rayenne was a seven-year-old who had been turned into a vampire. She had lasted two hundred years without going insane. She was very, very lucky. She still acted like a seven-year-old, though in some areas she was mature, namely her vocabulary and vocal qualities.

            "Let's go," Bakura said. "I have some business I would like to take care of."

            Bakura awoke the next morning at the glorious time of nine. He spent at least forty-five minutes in the bathroom, using the hairspray he had bought the previous afternoon after school had gotten out to make his hair look as good as he could get it. A little eyeliner, rubbing off the rest of that red stuff on his mouth and he was good to go.

            A sickening feeling of dread tugged at his insides as soon as he left the house. The feeling had never let him down before, and he wanted to just go back to his room and lie under the covers until at least mid-afternoon. A ten o'clock meeting with his friends was just way too much for his sleep-deprived body to handle.

            He arrived at the park just as his watch beeped out the hour. Several people he recognized from school were there, and he sat down on an empty bench.

            "Hey, Bakura! Over here!" someone yelled.

             He looked up at his classmates, wondering if there was someone else named Bakura in his school that might be showing up. He knew there wasn't. He calmly stood up and walked over to Yugi's friends.

            "Hello."

            "Yugi told me you'd be joining us in the park today. Speaking of which, do you know where he is? He's usually the first one here."

            "No," Bakura said. His stomach was doing flip-flops. 

            A girl, who he knew was named Fate, looked at the boy who had been speaking. "I'm sure Yugi forgot to set his alarm again. He was probably up late reading again."

            Bakura looked at them. "I think we should go over to his house. I have the feeling that something isn't right."

            The other kids nodded. "Okay. We're right behind you, Bakura."

            Bakura was about to lead them down a street when he stopped. "Um… where does Yugi live?"

            About fifteen minutes later, they arrived at the game shop. Bakura smelled dried blood in the air; it was coming from out back. He knew the others smelled it, too; Fate had her nose with one hand and her face was contorted into a look of pure disgust. . Yugi was behind the game shop, pale and hardly breathing. 

A large pool of blood rested underneath him, staining his hair and his neck. His head was at an odd angle, not broken, but not where it would be if he were merely asleep. There were puncture wounds at his neck. Bakura thought he saw the remains of what had been a glass of water or something of that sort.

            He was still in his pajamas.

            Bakura knelt down beside him. "We have to get him somewhere. He's almost dead. Go call someone."

            His eyes studied the body, faintly remembering something from a dream the night before. As he watched the body, he heard a car door slam. Pegasus's black car was sitting there, and he was watching Bakura and Fate with cold, calculating eyes. 

            Bakura just stared right back.

            Something was going on, and he knew it involved Pegasus and that weird double that called himself Yami Bakura. 

            He just hoped _he_ wasn't involved with this.


	4. Insanity

            Authoress's Note: Did the last chapter confuse you with Bakura? Well, I did that on purpose. Because nobody seems to recognize a difference between the Bakuras, when Yami Bakura is in control and Bakura is NOT there, he'll just be Bakura. I'll only use the full Yami Bakura name when they're both there. Sound simple enough? Okay.

                        Disclaimer still applies. Warnings still apply. 

            This chapter will move things along a little bit. I also am switching around tenses and all of that other good stuff to add to the overall confusion of the story. If you aren't reading this, too bad; you'll have to figure what's going on by yourself. HA!

I had this really cool dream last night about Yami Bakura. It also had Pegasus in it! Well, there were a bunch of murders and people hurdling big bricks at other things… Yami Bakura had a lot of friends… Pegasus was inviting people to his house for dinner… well, just one person, but you get the idea… *blush* Well, I should get on with the story before I embarrass myself…

***FIRST PERSON BAKURA, PRESENT TENSE***

            I hope I'm not involved with this.

            I have a strange feeling that I am.

            Yugi is unconscious.

            There's someone who is pretending to be me.

            What is going on?

            I am pacing back and forth in the waiting area. Yugi has been in there for hours. They said something about a blood transfusion. I hope he's okay.

            A really pretty nurse comes into the room. She has light brown hair and tired eyes. I wonder how many hours she works. This job must be exhausting.

            "Bakura? Yugi would like to talk to you."

            I nod. She leads me down a long hallway and stops at a door. There's a soft jingle in her pocket and she unlocks the door several seconds later. I walk in; Yugi is sitting up in bed with one of those trays of hospital food. There is a tube connected to his arm and I see something red inside it.

            "So, what happened?" Yugi asks. "I remember seeing you last night. You were out after curfew."

            _Oh my Gods… what am I supposed to say? Should I tell him about that thing that called himself me? Oh my Gods… Oh my Gods… What am I supposed to do? _

            Lie. Brilliant plan, and something I have been doing more of lately. "I don't know what you're talking about. I wasn't outside last night. I was at home."

            "Well, what were you doing?"

            _I passed out after someone who looks almost exactly like me kissed me. _"I was asleep. I was really tired yesterday and I couldn't keep my eyes open."

            Yugi sighs. "I don't know who else it could have been. I remember going down for a glass of water." I knew it! "I saw you outside with some other people and I decided to go down and see what you were doing. It must have been an hour or two past curfew."

            "What happened then?" I ask. Something tells me that I may not want to hear.

            "You grabbed me as soon as I was out the door and everything went black."

            "Oh."

            "Are you sure you weren't there?" Yugi asks. His eyes are boring into me. I can feel their intensity.

            I sigh and rake my hand through my hair. Good, hairspray still holding. "There are a lot of strange things that are going on here. I don't know, it could have been a different me. I saw something really strange last night before I passed out."

            "What happened?" 

            Well, Yugi _wants_ to know…

            "It was about sunset and I was getting ready for bed. As I said, I was really tired. My Millennium Ring – yes, I have an Item – started glowing and I went over to the mirror. Someone grabbed me and I turned around and I was looking at myself. I fainted."

            "You… fainted?"

            "Yes. I fainted."

            "Did he frighten you that much?"

            "Yes. Especially when he…" I trail off. "He was not the kind of person to mess with. Kind of wild, unrestricted, you know?"

            I'm not used to talking this much. I have always been the silent, obfuscated person, even though I get some of the highest grades. A week ago, a paragraph a day was a lot for me to say. I wonder what happened.

            "Bakura? The nurse says you and some other people found me. I want to thank you. If you hadn't come, I would be dead."

            "When are you getting out of the hospital?"

            "They say that if I don't develop a fever, I should be out by tomorrow afternoon. I am stuck in bed for the whole weekend and get out just in time to go to school. Perfect."

            I smile. Yugi could be a great friend…

            The nurse comes into the room; I hear the door close behind her. "You need to go now, Bakura. Other people want to talk to Yugi, and I don't think you need to be cooped up in a hospital all day long. Go get some exercise."

            She escorts me out of the room and tells me how to get back down to the lobby. I look at Yugi, who is lying on the bed with his eyes closed.

            I wonder if that needle in his arm hurts.

            As I walk down the street, I hear a noise. It sounds like the door of a car closing; I see Pegasus coming out of a car. He's going into a small clothing boutique called Rogue Four, one of the stores that cater toward men who like vintage.

            Curiosity is not highly valued in today's society.

            Unfortunately, I have that trait.

            I kneel down under the window and look inside. Pegasus is talking to a red-haired woman at the register; she's wearing all black and has black lipstick. The lipstick reminds me of last night. I deeply regret not kissing back.

            They finish talking and Pegasus goes toward the door – no, he's only walking toward one of the racks. He picks up a few ruffled shirts in various colors and places them neatly at the register. She rings them up. 

            Pegasus is saying something to her, and they both look at the window. I see something glow behind Pegasus's silvery-white hair. Somehow, I know they are looking right at me. How did they know I was here?

            I have two options. I can stay here and get caught, or I can run. Getting caught would be humiliating, for Pegasus is one of my teachers. Running would be better, as they wouldn't know who I am, and I might get enough of a head start to make it home before they can catch me.

            "Hello," I turn around. Pegasus and that strange girl are standing there. I back against the glass.

            "It's funny seeing you here," he continues. "I thought you lived on the other side of town, and why are you hiding out here like some sort of criminal?"

            "Someone I know is in the hospital," I mumble. Well, I need to give some sort of answer, don't I? "I was on my way back home. In fact, I think I'll go right now…"

            The weird girl grabs my arm. "Not so fast, Bakura."

            _How does she know my name? _

            I feel another presence inside my head. _I know her, _it says. _Now please shut up before you make a fool out of both of us. You need to do exactly as I say._

            Pegasus is staring right at me. "Saffron, I think you should just let him go. He has no idea what's going on."

            The said person opens her big black-rimmed mouth. "I don't want to let him go. I want to know why he is here."

            _Who are you? _

_            I'm that other person you saw last night. Now, be quiet and wait for them to get into a full-scale verbal argument. Picture yourself at home and run._

_            Thank you for the advice. Why should I trust you? You hurt one of my friends!_

_            He was one of your friends? I didn't realize he was, but you need to trust me or you'll be put through several hours of mental torture. Now does that sound like something you want to happen? _

_            Um…_

_            Yeah. Not a nice person. You're just going to have to deal with it if you screw up._

"He is one of my students, Saffron. He was probably wondering what I was doing at this establishment. Let him go."

            Saffron scowls at me and shoves me away. Pegasus is standing there with his arms crossed and a really disappointed look on his face.

            "I'm driving you home," he says. 

            "I can walk. It's across town, but I need the exercise."

            "No. I'm driving you."

            He opens the passenger side door for me and I jump in. I buckle the seatbelt and cross my arms. I am so confused, and I'm also angry.

            "I'm not an infant," I tell him.

            "I know. And I also know you were at the hospital with one of your friends. How is he?" Pegasus asked.

            "He'll be out just in time for school."

            "There's something else, though, isn't there?" Pegasus gives me a long look. I don't think he's paying much attention to the road. "You should tell me. I am your teacher, after all. You can talk to me."

            "I think I had something to do with his accident."

            "But you don't remember doing anything."

            "No, I don't. I still know I have something to do with it. I want to know what's going on. And… I think you know."

            "Was that an accusation?"

            "No, but you do know something."

            Pegasus parks the car. We're nowhere near my house. He turns toward me and looks into my eyes. "You're saying that you don't remember what goes on at night, but I think something inside you does know. You just might not be ready to understand what is going on during the night. Tell me, when have you last eaten something?"

            "Uh…" I can't remember the last time I ate. I'm pretty much left to my own devices, and I never think about food. "It was a long time ago."

             He looks at me. "Oh, really?"

            "Yes. Is there something you can say to explain that? You don't seem that surprised, so I think you know why."

            I hear him laugh. "I'm trying to find the best way to put this without sounding stupid. You see, verbal communication is an art. You have to work at it to produce the right effect."

            "I'll remember that. Now I want an explanation."

            "You don't eat during the day. You feed at night, or at least a part of you does, the part I know well. Then there is this other you that takes control during the day; you. You don't feel hunger and you keep to yourself. You are totally oblivious to your darker side, and you don't remember anything you've done."

            The voice is in my mind again. _Oh, that is positively brilliant. Pegasus always was one to make totally simple things really complicated with his verbal art philosophy…_

_            Well, do you have any answers?_

_            Yes._

_            Then why aren't you telling me anything?_

_            You never asked._

_            Oh._

            "To put it bluntly, you're a vampire." Pegasus looks like he just said the most generic thing in the entire world. 

Unfortunately, he is right. That is the stupidest thing I have heard in my entire life. I don't even know what a vampire is. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with blood, though. 

            "Do you have anything to say about that?"

            "Yes." 

            "What?"

            "I don't even know what a vampire is."

            "Oh."

            "Can you please take me home now?"

***SWITCHING TO PAST TENSE, STILL FIRST PERSON***

            He was waiting for me when I walked in my room. The curtains were drawn and he was sitting against my pillow.

            "So, he finally decided it was worth the effort to find your house."

            "Who are you?"

            My look-alike smiled. "I thought we have already gone through this. I am Yami Bakura, your dark side. And no, you're not a schizophrenic with multiple personality disorder. I am my own entity."

            "If you are my dark side and I am your light side, why are you there instead of in here?" I pointed to myself. "Why aren't we together?"

            "I think it has something to do with the Millennium Ring."

            _Most things that happen to me involve that Item, _I thought glumly. "Why are you here?"

            A blow to the side of my head caught me by surprise. I found myself on the ground. There was blood running into my mouth.

            "What," I choked, "was that," gargle, "for?"

            "Being such a curious little kitty." He started to clean his nails. "I have neglected you for far too long. You've got to get in shape. Hit me back."

            "What?" I gasped. 

            "Are you deaf, too? Hit me back."

            "But… I'm hurt. The wound could be fatal."

            "What wound?"

            I felt my head and found the area with the most blood, but there wasn't a wound it could have come from. My eyes widened and I looked at my violent dark side. I stood up and gave him a smack. I closed my eyes.

            "That was pathetic."

            At least he wasn't mad at me…

            The next hit put me on my back. He was on me, holding my arm in a very uncomfortable position. I felt the tears start to well in my eyes. I didn't want to cry, but it hurt so much. Maybe I could get him off me. 

            I rolled over, awarded by a sharp pain in my right arm, and kicked him in the stomach. He started to laugh.

            "Much better! I like you when you're ticked!"

            He threw a punch at me and I grabbed it, which hurt, and I was astonished at the speed I could move at. I didn't see the hit coming from his other arm, which sent me flying. I narrowly missed the mirror that was on the outside of my closet door. I slid down the wall and looked up at my dark side.

            "Watch your back. That's the best advice I have for you." He slapped me on the cheek, which made my head snap to the left. I rubbed it, surprised by how sensitive it was. He sat down next to me and smiled.

            "How can you be my dark half and be separate from me? How can you have your own body if we are the same?"

            Yami Bakura laughed at me. "I don't have my own body. This is a manifestation. I am using our collective energy to sustain a fake body. I am not real. I have my own mind, even though I am your dark half. I was originally a spirit trapped in the Millennium Ring." He came in closer, and I noticed the black lipstick on his lips. My own lips ached, reminded of the forced kiss of last night.

            As if sensing my need, he came in and locked his lips with mine. I kissed back, which mildly shocked him. It was over in less than a minute, but my lips still ached. 

            I walked away from him and looked through the curtains. The sun was beginning to sink over the horizon. I turned away from the window. The curtain fell back into place with a soft swish. I wasn't surprised I could hear it; my senses heightened as the sun sank lower and lower.

            Yami Bakura was gone.

            I was awakened by the phone just as my alarm clock started to ring. It was the beginning of the last week of school. We had all our exams Thursday, and most of the school was in a cram-panic. Teachers were finishing their classes in a panicked state so they would be ready for the final. 

            As soon as I picked the phone up, I heard the other line go dead.

            Sickened, I put it down. 

            I got dressed in half the time it normally took and raced to school. Whatever was going on would be explained there in the before-school conversations. I found Yugi. Aside from being a little pale, he looked okay. He was standing next to Fate, the girl who had been waiting for him on Saturday.

            "What's going on?"

            Yugi looked at me. "Tristan got taken last night. I tried to call you this morning, but someone cut our phone lines. I don't understand why Tristan was taken away. Téa was really spiritual and Joey was in one of those gangs, but Tristan hadn't done anything. Do you know why they could have taken him?"

            I shook my head. "No."

            Yugi started to cry. Fate and I tried to keep him from hysterical yelling, and other people in the halls were giving us strange looks. "I hate them! Why are they ruining my life? Is there something about me that makes people want to hurt me?"

            _Yes, there is, _I heard Yami Bakura mutter. _They're going to come after him if he doesn't keep quiet about his disagreements with the government. This is where it all starts. He shouldn't hang out with that crowd of people._

            "Yugi, I know you're very disturbed, but could you please be quiet?" Fate said.

            I nodded. Fate was starting to look really good in my eyes; she always knew the right thing to say. "She's right. You can't help your friends if they take you away, too. It is okay to hate them. Just don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing."

            _Did I goof up that saying? _I asked myself.

            _Yes, now shut your mouth before someone recognizes you. _

            _Huh?_

            "I'll see you people in class," I heard myself say. 

            Pegasus, as usual, seemed to notice when the class wasn't paying attention. He gave us a fifteen-minute lecture on why we needed stop thinking about Tristan. He was a very well liked person, and everyone in the class had at least something good to say about him. 

            "As much mourning as there is, we still need to think about the exams that are coming up. I will go easy on you this year, as you Freshmen have taken enough bashing as it is, but don't expect me to cut you slack your Sophomore year. Everyone in this room should be starting to decide what they want to do in their life." I could have sworn he turned toward me. "Some more than others."

            I gulped and turned away. He started talking about something that involved evidence of trading between Africa and Egypt a few thousand years ago. The eyes of every kid in the class drooped. I found it hard to stay awake as well. It was like something was trying to pull me away from consciousness. 

            Pretty soon, everyone in the class was asleep. I turned this way and that, and as I did I noticed Pegasus had stopped lecturing. He was leaning against the desk; I thought I saw a gold light behind his hair. 

            I heard Yugi begin to stir. Something under his shirt was glowing, and he sat up like an electric current had just gone through him. He looked around at the sleeping forms of the other students, widened his eyes as he looked from Pegasus to Bakura, and decided it had been a really bad idea to wake up.

            "Bakura, what's going on?"

            "I don't know. It has to do something with our teacher."

            Pegasus smiled at us. "What's wrong?"

            "The other students are all asleep," Yugi answered in a low murmur. Then his voice took on a more confident tone. He looked like he was internally debating a course of action with himself; I wonder if I get that look on my face when I'm talking to Yami Bakura. "What have you done to them?"

            "They fell asleep. I hope they're okay. Not everyone can handle the dryness of a lecture about ancient trade routes between continents. You boys could. You should be rewarded. What do you want?"

            I kept my eyes on Pegasus, but I could feel Yugi fight. "You have done something to them and I want you to make it stop."

            "Can't you think of anything better than that? What do you want, Ryou Bakura?" Pegasus seemed bored…

            I looked down at my hands. I really hated to be the center of attention. It was like some twisted game. There were two strings hanging off a cliff. One held the lives or consciousness, whatever you wanted to call it, and the other held whatever relationship I had with Pegasus. I turned to Yugi. The thing under his shirt started to glow again. I felt my own item begin to slither underneath my uniform. 

            He let out a yell, and I turned away as there was this blinding flash of light. There was a strange entity standing in the room. I looked at Pegasus, who seemed a little surprised, and I heard the outraged cries of my dark half inside me. I couldn't make decisions that held lives at stake. I wasn't born to be a leader.

            _We have a long way to go, _my dark half whispered to me. _That kid doesn't even know I am here with you. The Pharaoh cannot conceive what I am doing to you._

_            You sound jealous._

_            No. I just hate him._

_            What Pharaoh?_

_            Long story._

_            Could you please tell me?_

            You'll find out for yourself unless you're dense, and in that case, I don't think anyone in the world could make you see what's going on.

            I realized I had been mumbling out loud. That weird person Yugi turned into and Pegasus were both staring at me. I looked up innocently.

            "Who are you?"

            "My name is no concern of yours."

            "Yes, it is my concern. I want to know who you are!" I flashed him the most innocent look I could manage. I felt him begin to melt. His lower lip trembled.

            "I can't take it anymore!" he screamed. "My name is Yami."

            He turned to Pegasus. "It's time to play a little game. We each draw a card. The person with the highest points wins."

            He held up a deck of Duel Monster cards. Pegasus looked a little bored. "Is that all we're supposed to do? I think you're overreacting."

            Pegasus took a card and looked at it. It was Exodia's left leg. He handed it to Yami and Yami drew… the Dark Magician. Pegasus resumed talking. 

            "I just wanted to take a break in teaching to tell both of you that you are being watched. Yugi or whoever you go by more than you, Bakura; you are slightly out of their reach. Yugi, however, is human, and the consequences could be fatal if he slips up one more time. Are you listening to me, Yugi, or are you going to stand there with that eye on your forehead glowing?"

            "What do they want with us?" Yami asked.

            Pegasus flexed his fingers. I could tell he was thinking about his wine glass collection. I don't know how I knew, but he was. "You were out past curfew."

            I decided that it was time for my intellectual capabilities to come into the picture. "Well, isn't there a way for him to get away from that?"

            Yami seemed distressed. There he was, ready for a fight, and it wasn't really that serious. I started to laugh and he looked at me. "_Why are you laughing at me?_" 

            I decided it was better if I didn't answer his question. He looked like he was going to kill me.

            Pegasus seemed oblivious to all of it. "There is a way, but he's too innocent."

            Something stirred in the room, and there was sudden silence.

            I awoke to the bell going off. Everyone, including the teacher, had fallen asleep.

            That was weird.


	5. Dead or Damned?

            Authoress's Notes: Okay. This is coming along rather nicely, if some parts of it are a little… weird… Well, anyway, here I am. I think people are actually reading this, so thank you for sticking with it.

Disclaimer still applies. All of the warnings still apply, this chapter especially! 

I had another dream that involves Pegasus last night! It was something involving a big mansion-like house, and he was there and people were arguing about who was going to room with him in the hotel, but there wasn't a hotel. Shows you just how much I like him, huh?

This chapter is going to alternate between Yugi and Bakura's points of view, also some 3rd person. I hope I'm doing a good job with Pegasus. The guy seems really confused, doesn't he? I mean, one second he's all nice and the next second he's evil, followed by several minutes of severe protagonist-ness… is that even a word? Well, at least SOMEONE is writing something about him where he isn't an evil, heartless… monster!

*** YUGI'S POINT OF VIEW, PAST TENSE***

            Innocent. Is that a label I must carry around for the rest of my life? Even with my Yami in control, I could hear those words. He couldn't shield me from them. No one can.

            "He's too innocent."

            Why hadn't he taken a knife and slashed it across my chest?

            Because it wouldn't hurt enough…

            I walked out of school that day with a death wish. It didn't matter now. Nothing did. I mean, did they honestly think I was stupid? 

            Optimism isn't a crime, or is it?

            _Aibou__, you need to stop. Pretty soon you'll end up in the gutter if you keep acting like this._

_            I'm not a child. You don't need to keep watch over me every second of the day._

Yami was silent. 

            I walked along the streets, seeing nothing, thinking that damned word over and over again in my mind. Innocent. How could they think I was more innocent than them? Me, always so nice, always so… naïve; yes, that was the word they thought in their minds. I'm naïve. 

            And that look on his face when he saw me there, that look that almost made me throw up. Bakura thought – knew – it was his fault, even though it was as much my fault as anyone else's. I mean, how could I have just waltzed outside after dark without some sort of protection? It was more my fault than anyone else's! It was ALL MY FAULT!

            I sat down on a bench and started to cry. I hated the tears even more than I hated myself, but they just wouldn't stop. 

            I must have fallen asleep, for when I awoke sunset was approaching. Pegasus was standing against it; he was wearing a black trench coat. Yami was yelling something in my head frantically about the setting sun.

            _I don't want to listen to you at the moment. I just want to be alone, _I told him. __

_            But you must listen! The sun is setting and as soon as it does, he is free to move! _

_            Does it even matter?_

_            Yes! It does matter! The instant the last light fades out of the sky, he is at his full power! They may have forgotten to finish you last time, but they don't leave ends loose for very long! Aibou!_

_            Is that… bad? _

_            Yes._

            "What are you doing out here at this time of day; the sun has almost set."

            I was aware of Pegasus kneeling beside me. He put his hand on my head and pulled me up with his left arm. I felt a little violated and slightly angry that I didn't notice him come over to where I was sitting.

            "I was just watching the sunset."

            "It's a school night, Yugi-boy. Shouldn't you be at home? The final I am giving you won't be easy if you don't study your notes."

            The sun was slowly sinking over the horizon. I felt like running, but I knew it was useless. Pegasus's hand was locked onto my shoulder.

            A gust of wind blew up and actually moved his hair. It wasn't like the wind had moved it; it seemed he let the wind move his hair. What I next saw filled me with horror.

            Pegasus had no left eye.

            It had been replaced with something that looked Egyptian, all gold, and it glistened in the setting sun with a radiance that gold could never have.

***THIRD PERSON***

            The sky was overcast, and small tendrils of lightning came through the sky. It was about midnight on a secluded island somewhere in the Pacific, but there were still people awake, working, and dying.

            She looked around, slightly sickened. The smell of death was everywhere, and the rotting corpses of her fellow slave laborers were unattended to. She picked up another dead body and shoved it onto the cart. It was the body of a child, probably no more than three years old. She wondered how long it had been here.

            _The only good part about working here is that the overseers are too afraid of the sickness to come close,_ she thought glumly. _I wish I were somewhere else._

            A grime-covered hand quickly adjusted the shredded fabric that she had put over her nose and mouth. A flash of lightning revealed stained, tattered clothes that once were a school uniform. She felt like she was about ready to throw up. 

            _I'm way too good for this. What happened to my life? I wanted to be a ballet dancer. I hope I can find some way out of this place._

            She bent over and lifted another body. A Duel Monsters card peeked out from inside her shirt, laminated and given its own chain. The Magician of Faith, her favorite card in the whole world. And, ever since she came here, the card had become her religion. She had only been able to keep one card, a card to symbolize her, as all the other slave laborers had. They called her Faith now for some cruel reason, but it was better than those who had no cards. They were just numbers on a piece of paper.

            Rain washed over her thin form after a loud rumble, and she felt the comforting water wash her clean of impurities. A gunshot rang out against the night, and she wondered who was trying to escape. There was sometimes talk of it in the cabins, though most of the talk was just wishful thinking. 

            Oblivious to the soft indigo-violet glow of the card, she plodded on through the rain for at least another hour before the cart was full. They didn't have enough graveyard labor to take care of the bodies, not even when there were four shifts.

            As a graveyard laborer, she was sanitized as soon as she tried to enter the main camp. All the graveyard laborers were put in one place, a place set aside from the others so the death toll would not be as high. They needed everyone else's labor for the agriculture and machinery. 

            There was only one good thing about her assigned task.

            Food.

            Unlike the other laborers, she had two large meals a day with halfway-decent food. The people in charge needed the graveyard laborers to stay alive as long as possible because they didn't want to waste living humans on a task that usually proved fatal in some way or another. About half of the people in graveyard laboring died after only two months from disease or overwork.

            Another flash of lightning revealed someone standing apart from the bodies. He was not a laborer; she had never seen him before. She waited for another flash of lightning and let his features burn into her mind. He was wearing black velvet, and his hair was a frosted blue that matched his eyes, but he was deathly pale.

            "Sir," she said. "You should not be here. There is sickness. You will catch a disease. Please, go back the way you came."

            He was suddenly standing next to her, and a gloved hand pulled her chin up and exposed her vulnerable neck. "Téa, I came here for you."

            The card started to burn her chest. She let out a scream that was quickly muffled by his other hand. She heard about him sometimes; he usually attacked people on the shift after her. This was how Joey died. He was attacked.

            "Monster," she whispered, her voice almost a hiss over the pain from the card. She felt the Magician of Faith somewhere nearby, and the card's voice whispered something in her ear.

            _"Faith…"_

            His lips were at her throat, and she could feel something sharp barely poking out of them. The lips traveled over her neck until they found what they wanted, and then she knew the true meaning of pain. 

            She screamed.

            And screamed.

            And screamed.

            And everything went black.

            For the first time, Fate was running for her life. She saw the unopened letter on the table when she got home, and she knew it had to do something with her. After all, everyone but her had been taken. She ran up the stairs as fast as her legs could carry her and changed out of the drab school uniform.

            She had grabbed everything that was valuable to her, especially the two cards she loved most out of all the cards in Duel Monsters. It was an advanced move, a combination of two different powers, but it made the Magician of Hearts. She wore the two cards around her neck when she was at school, but she would take them out of their locket whenever she dueled.

            Fate was a secret unto itself.

            She had been awake when Pegasus tried to make her fall asleep, yes, and she heard every word of what happened. 

            A heart of gold. Literally. 

            Black leather and sunglasses, combat boots, and a belt that held all of her possessions. Then she took the knife her father had given her after he came back from Egypt, the knife that had been used in rituals thousands of years ago. She could feel its power, and she knew it wasn't a fake. She put a steel gray sweater on to disguise herself and waited in her room, her eyes closed, sensing the presence move closer to the house.

            She heard them tear her mother and father from the house. She heard the screams as her younger brother was taken, and then she heard the slow, deliberate footsteps. They were coming for her now. She couldn't let that happen, not when she had the Heart.

            Opening her eyes, she dashed to the closed window. She leaped, pulling herself into a ball, covering her head to protect it from the glass shards. The fall wasn't as bad as she thought it would be; she landed like a cat, causing minor discomfort in her leg muscles. They weren't used to being used in this way.

            Too bad. They would just have to learn.

            Fate was not stupid, and she did the thing any smart person would do.

            She ran.

            Now it was several hours later, almost midnight, and she had lost them. They gave up somewhere around eleven, much to her relief. 

            The park was silent after dark, the silence made even more complete by the lack of people. She felt like she was walking through a cemetery. The thought slithered through her mind, and after she thought it, the park suddenly seemed dark and sinister.

            That is, until she saw what was going on at one of the benches…

            It made her feel almost sick.

            A cold hand grabbed her, and she realized that there was only one figure on the bench. Then what was—

            "Hello, Fate. What are you doing out this late? Shouldn't you be home?"

            "There is no home," she said, turning around, "not anymore."

            Téa regained consciousness. Her head was very sore, and her vision was spinning. What she saw after her eyes decided to focus made her wish she was still unconscious.

            She was standing in something that looked like a hedge maze, and it was nighttime. It was so hard to think about anything, but she knew she needed to go to the center. There was something there she needed to find. Something she had lost. But what was it? She felt at her neck and realized that her card was missing.

            So _that_ was what she needed to find.

            With a cry of discontent from her aching limbs, she climbed to her feet and limped along the path, taking many twists and turns without conscious thought. After every turn, she felt better, so she knew she was doing the right thing.

            That is, until she came to the dead end.

            "No," she murmured, turning around, surprised to see a wooden wall. She turned this way and that, but she was surrounded by walls.

            "That's not going to help you."

            She turned around and saw two doors. The wooden walls had somehow adorned themselves with vines, even though they had been new when she had been enclosed. There were two figures on the doors, and both of them seemed to be sentient.

            "Did you just say something?"

            "No. That was him," the same voice replied.

            She turned to the other one, somehow sensing that the darker door was not going to be of any help. "Do you know how I get out of this enclosure?"

            The face on the door smiled. "The only way out is through one of these doors. One leads to death, and the other takes you back to where you were, life."

            The other door, which had originally spoken, said, "But I should warn you that one of us always tells the truth and one of us always lies."

            She felt something about the two doors that was suspicious, and briefly went over the riddle in her mind. If what the face said was true, then there would be another door somewhere around.

            "Come on and choose already! This doesn't take much thought! Open one of us and walk right through!"

            She smirked. "What happens if I don't choose one of you? I don't want to die, and I don't want to go back to my life, either. Neither holds much value to me, as my life was a living hell before I got here. I am not choosing between the two of you."

            "She can't do that, can she?" one door asked the other.

            "No! She can't!"

            Téa smirked and turned toward the other walls. "Too bad, because that's what I am doing right now."

            She studied the walls carefully, and there was the outline of a door underneath the vines. The vines cut at her fingers and made her hands bleed, but she didn't feel the pain at all. There was something in the air that made her feel like she was on the right track, that the sum of her blood and suffering would somehow amount to something.

            While she worked at clearing the vines away, the other doors screamed at her to stop and do as they said. She ignored them and kept working until the third door was in front of her. This door had no face, but there was the staff of the Magician of Faith drawn onto the wood.

            Confidently, she opened the door… and found herself in the most beautiful garden she had ever seen.

            The Magician of Faith was standing in the center, sitting on the edge of a pool. There was a fountain; something red trickled down into the "water," which Téa saw was not water but blood. 

            "What do you want?" The Magician of Faith asked. She was holding a cup in each hand, her staff at her feet. In one cup there was something that looked and smelled like blood, and in the other was something that smelled sweet and radiated numbness.

            The Magician of Faith began to explain the choices. "You have already said you do not want to go back to the life. In the golden goblet, there is a new life. In the silver goblet, there is death. What do you want?"

            She reached for the golden goblet, confident that she didn't want death. The Magician of Faith pulled it back. "There are dire consequences that come with each."

            "I don't care. I want to live. I just don't want my old life, and I'm not ready to die! Give me the golden goblet! Please!" Téa felt the tears fall.

            She was aware of someone pressing something to her lips.

            Everything did _not_ go black.

            Instead, everything went white.

            Fate tried to decide how long she could last. There were cuts all over her from her jump out the window, and she had been awake for about nineteen hours. 

            She pushed herself away from Pegasus, which caused one of the deeper cuts on her to come open. The smell of blood wafted through the air, and it was obvious that Pegasus was using every ounce of self-control he had to restrain himself.

            "What have you done to Yugi?" she accused.

            "Just a taste; they are coming after him tomorrow, just like they came after you today. How did you escape from them? No one ever escapes."

            Fate brushed the hair out of her face. "I jumped out a window."

            "A _closed _window?"

            "You got it, teacher. I've been running around all day, and they finally gave up."

            Pegasus looked her up and down. She felt awkward under his gaze. "Insane," he said. "That was insane. And your family was taken as well?"

            "Yes."

            "I'm sorry."

            Fate shook her head and gave him a glare. "I still want to know what you're doing to Yugi there. I don't think it's very nice to sit there giving hickeys to an innocent kid."

            "I'm taking you both to my place. You'll be safe there. I'm too high up for them to suspect me, even if I am just a teacher. I created Duel Monsters."

            Fate rolled her eyes. "Yeah, we know you created Duel Monsters, but I doubt they will give a rat's rear about that."

            "Your language is not appropriate."

            "Seeing as I can't show my face in school again, I don't think my language can get me in trouble anymore."

            "Okay, now help me get the 'innocent kid' in the car, Fate." 

***FIRST PERSON BAKURA***

            We had been fighting since sunset. Or, more accurately, he had been beating me up since sunset with miniscule pauses for me to regain consciousness and heal.

            He came at me like a whirlwind again, and this time I decided to sidestep it while kicking his backside. He stopped and smiled at me.

            "That was a definite improvement over last time," he said. Then he punched at my face like he did after he said something; it was meant to catch me off-guard. I ducked. "Definite improvement," he repeated in a whisper. 

            "Go to bed. Tomorrow you have your exams, so you should rest for a few hours, not that you really need the sleep."

            I nodded.

            It had been two days since I saw Fate and Yugi. They had just disappeared without a trace; people were talking about how her family was taken but she was missing when they got there. Yugi's family hadn't been taken, but they had come for him. I heard people talking about how they were enraged when he wasn't there.

            Monday night, Yami Bakura had broken my wrist. He had to set it immediately, and Tuesday I had gone into school with a severely sore wrist, not to mention all the weird stares I got. I was the only one who knew Yugi well that hadn't been taken. 

He told me it would take around thirty hours for the broken bone to heal, and, naturally, he wanted to continue conditioning me tonight. I was still avoiding the use of my right hand, not that it really mattered… being ambidextrous was a merit.

            I heard the doorbell ring, so I wandered down the stairs to answer it, still cleaning the blood off myself. I tried to scrub all the noticeable stuff on my skin, opened the door, and proceeded to be shocked.

            Téa was standing at the door, wet and cold from the rain, her clothing tattered. She was covered in mud and looked like she had just gone through living hell. There was a little blood on her mouth. I stared at her, wondering how she could have found me, then remembered she had asked me out last year. I had, of course, declined her.

            "Hello, Téa. What are you doing out there?"

            "Please let me in. Do you know how hard it was for me to even get this far?"

            "What happened?"

            "I was at the camp."

            "You were at the camp?"

            "Yes."

            "How did you get here?"

            She didn't answer, but walked into the house and slammed the door shut. I stared at her, my eyes wide, wondering why she did that… before I realized that anyone could have seen her and recognized her despite her state.

            "Stay right here. My father left Monday; he's on a dig. He won't be back for another month or so. I'll find you some clothes. Take those things off; I don't want you to dirty anything."

            Téa hesitated, her eyes filled with questioning. "You want me to strip? Here?" 

            "Gods, you're safe with me. I'll find some clothes for you."

            I walked into my room, where my ring started to glow. Yami Bakura came out, his eyes wide. "Are you insane, Bakura? Why is she here? What is going on?"

            While I was in my closet, I decided to tell him a shortened version of the story. "Téa is someone I know from school. Last week, she was abducted and taken to one of the government institutions. Nobody knows where the institutions are, but she is in really bad shape."

            "I don't like this. What if they sent her here to spy on us?"

            "Téa is not that kind of person."

            I walked to the bathroom and threw some clothing in there. I would have to go into my mother's chest in the attic if she was picky enough to need a bra. I mean, my mother died and I don't have any female members of the family, so it's not like I have those articles of clothing. Actually, my father might have some, but then again, my father was just plain weird sometimes.

            I turned on the shower and went downstairs to bring her up. She looked at me shyly with a slight blush; one if her arms was hiding her breasts. I took the other am and led her upstairs. I thought about burning the other clothes. I mean, who knew what kind of diseases she had been exposed to?

            When I walked downstairs, I noticed that there was a card with the Magician of Faith lying on her clothes. I took it off them and took the clothes outside. The skies had miraculously cleared, and I doused the clothes with gasoline. Several minutes later, the reminders of her captivity were no more than ashes.

***THIRD PERSON***

            Téa didn't know how she'd gotten back to her home city.

            She remembered waking up in the park, the place where a lot of weird things seemed to happen after dark. There was a golden goblet in her hand, and some of the liquid was still in the bottom. She drank the rest of it hungrily before licking it.

            That action had disturbed her even more than the sight of Bakura fighting someone who looked exactly like him; she had watched them fight for almost an hour before finally becoming fed up with waiting. Then she rang the doorbell.

            After she got out of the shower, she put on the clothing Bakura had given her. It didn't fit as well as she would have liked it to fit, the pants being a little too long. 

            Bakura was waiting for her. He handed her the necklace with the Magician of Faith forever locked away inside its laminated seal.

            "I burned the clothes."

            "Thank you."

            "So, what exactly happened to you out there?"

            "I was taken to an island and forced to work in the graveyard. I had to pile bodies onto carts for six hours from early evening to somewhere around one in the morning. It was a really dangerous job, too, especially when workers started disappearing. I don't know how I escaped."

            "What do you remember about your escape?"

            "There was this really cute guy who was standing off to the side, and he looked too well-kept to be a slave laborer, so I told him he should go away. Most of the bodies were victims of disease, and I didn't want him to catch it. He was suddenly on me and I remembered all of the stories about Gentleman Death waiting for laborers after dark, and I think I fainted. When I woke up, I was in the park."

            "That is so weird."

            "Do you know where Yugi and Fate are?"

            "I haven't seen them since Monday. They disappeared, but they weren't taken. Nobody heard anything about them being taken. They just… vanished. Fate's family was taken, though, and there were rumors that she somehow escaped from their grasp."

            "But… no one escapes from them."

            "I know. It seems really fishy, doesn't it? All of the stuff that is happening here could fit better in a horror movie than the real world."

            Téa smiled at Bakura. "Thank you for taking me in. If you hadn't been here for me, I would have been caught again." She hugged him.

            "No problem. You can sleep in the guest room. I need to get a few hours of sleep; I have exams tomorrow."

            The castle towered above the ocean like a manifestation of dark energy, its towers cutting into the air so keenly that the air wept from pain. Thunder rolled and lightning struck; there were evil-looking gargoyles positioned everywhere.

            There was a large room with great windows, no glass, just window. The screaming winds burst in through the window, furious that someone could build a castle in the air so easily, with almost no effort.

            A girl was standing at one of the windows, a silver crown on her head. Diamonds were woven into her hair, and there was a tattoo on her forehead in the shape of an eye. In the center, a clear, sliver-like gem had been welded into her skin.

            She wore hoopskirts and a petticoat; the bottom of her dress was black. She wore a red corset, the red of newly fallen blood, and the sleeves of her dress billowed and beat at her, the very tool of the enraged air around her.

            Her eyes were closed. She laughed a laugh so chilling that it would have called evil spirits to her out of curiosity, evil spirits that didn't know their demise would come if they even laid a finger on the young woman. She would have been beautiful…

            Only something was terribly wrong with her appearance. It could have been her pale skin or the redness of her lips. It may have been her laughter, which could drive the sanest man to madness in less than a second.

            The lids of her eyes were too flat, and as she opened them, the true horror was revealed. Empty sockets gazed out at the tempest surrounding her and a hand reached out and touched the sills of the windows. It might have been the very hand of death, for this young woman, this girl-woman…

            _She had no eyes…_

_            She could not see anything..._

_            She could see everything._


	6. And the Bodies Pile High!

            Authoress's Notes: YAY! I have reviews! People are actually reading this!

            Disclaimer still applies. Warnings still apply. Oh, and this chapter has a lot of torture in it, hence the really pretty name. What can I say? I was in a mood when I was writing this chapter. I wanted blood. And I have Authoress Powers, so I got what I asked for…

            Well, I think if you got this far you've noticed how I am dealing with the Yami Bakura/Bakura relationship. I don't really like the idea of reasonless beating, so I have warped that aspect to where hitting and punching can actually be useful. I mean, Yami Bakura is stuck with Bakura, and beating is not going to solve any of his problems. Yami Bakura is smarter than people realize, and I don't think he lives to be an antagonist. Thank you. 

            This is a record for me. Over twenty thousand words in about four days; I really like writing this story. I hope my humanizing efforts are working…

            GO SADISTIC KILLING SPREE!

The girl with no eyes laughed.

            "Mai," she called. The call somehow made its way through the castle to the laborer working in the kitchen.

            Five minutes later, she started talking. Her voice was a hand bashing a skull on the rock, filled with dangerous energy and murder. "It is coming. Can you feel it?"

            "Milady?"

            "There was a prophecy when I came to power. It said one would overthrow me, one more powerful than I, but that cannot be possible, as my power grows every day, and no one has arisen to defeat me. But there has been a disturbance in the camps."

            Mai remembered the camps. She was lucky she had been chosen to work here instead of there.

            "A girl escaped from the graveyard shift. No one knows how or why, but she has escaped. Her name was Téa. There is some great power at work here that could expose us all. It could very well destroy everyone who fights."

            The slave laborer opened her mouth. "I thought you had blinded the people. There are still resistors after all this time?"

            "Yes," she replied. "There are still resistors, only I cannot feel them. They cannot possibly be human beings, therefore are out of my reach. It would take a great deal of my energy to capture them."

            The eyeless sockets were once again underneath the flat lids. "I sense your doubt, Mai. You are losing your faith in our authoritarian dictatorship."

            "No, milady. I am not losing faith. Tell me what you want me to do and I will do it." Mai did not want to die. She hated her life, but she did not want to die.

            The eyeless girl smiled sadistically. "Jump out the window."

            No response.

            "If you value your life, you will jump out the window."

            Mai did nothing.

            The room shimmered until there was a table sitting there. The wind began to howl through the windows and pushed Mai onto the table. The eyeless girl was on her in a flash, securing the doomed slave girl onto the rack.

            A knife slid across Mai's arm, and she gasped from the pain. There was not enough blood for it to be fatal. The eyeless girl let out a long, low hiss.

            "Em esoppo ohw esoth ot egassem a," she screamed. 

            The knife pointed at Mai and her entire body was suddenly alive with pain. She looked at the cut, wondering how it could be so painful, and gasped as the blood left her veins and traveled to the air above her head. Her pale face gazed at the eyeless girl with disbelief. Droplets of blood were hanging in midair, suspended…

            "Théa-Rouge…" she whispered, murmuring the eyeless girl's name.

            The said villain laughed at the slave girl, the lifeblood leaving the girl with every breath she took, her heart beating and trying to circulate the thinned blood. It was too easy… way too easy… She said so and laughed at the helpless girl, who responded with a wordless cry of agony.

            "I would have killed you eventually. You are lucky I waited until I was in a good mood, Mai." The cloud of blood over the tortured body was seething. 

            She threw the knife through the cloud. It pierced Mai's chest cleanly. A bloodcurdling scream ran through the girl's mouth. The blood fell on the girl and splattered onto the floor.

            "Rain…"

            Fate awoke from her slumber in the middle of the afternoon. The scream from her dream chilled her to the core, but it wasn't only the scream.

            The eyes stared at her and threatened to find her. She could feel the girl in her mind somehow, laughing at her, though she knew it was only her paranoia. But still… no eyes… that blood…

            Desperately trying to think of something else, she walked over to Yugi's bed and smoothed aside his bangs. Yes, he was cute, naïve… innocent… but there was more to him than that. She stared at the puzzle around his neck, briefly wondering what it had to do with anything. It was always there.

            Sometimes she thought it was someone else talking instead of Yugi. It was like there was some other presence inside him, something that came out of the Millennium Puzzle. And there was also something wrong with Bakura. One minute the guy was nice, gentile, and kind; then he got a distant look in his eyes and ran away as if he was afraid he would get someone hurt.

            It reminded her of the comical scene in the classroom when she had been "sleeping." Despite the confident air of Yugi's other side, he was still the same person, blissfully unaware that there was a deeper meaning to those card games and disappearances. 

            Fate's parents had taught her about the true meaning.

            Her parents… 

            The tears welled up and the sadness threatened to eat away at her soul, leaving nothing, being nothing more than darkness… then she was crying, and there was no color in the room. The deep reds had faded until there was almost no color at all, and before her eyes she could see everything crumble into dust.

            Yugi was still lying there, but there wasn't just Yugi. She saw a shadow behind him, and as she looked, she saw the shadow become more like someone else. 

            "There are two Yugis…" she whispered.

            Fate looked around the room and felt herself rise from the tattered bed. Some sort of vermin squeaked and scurried under the blanket; she thought she saw something.

            "See beyond," said a voice. It sounded like Fate, only… younger.

            There was a child standing in front of her, and they were in a grassy field. Both Yugis were lying somewhere in it, but she did not look for long.

            Fate looked into the child's eyes and saw… herself.

            Clad in a simple white robe, her hair coming into her eyes playfully…

            A small hand reached for the larger hand.

            "Play with me."

            "I'm not a child anymore. I don't play games. There are no games."

            A could passed over the child's face. "True, but it is wise to pretend. All of this is just one big masquerade, one grand illusion thrown by the Queen of Spades." She held up a card, her childlike eyes suddenly devoid of all innocence and compassion. "Play."

            Fate looked at the card and saw the demented, eyeless girl. "I-I can't…"

            "Why can't you play with me?"

            "I'm too afraid. She'll find me, and it's not a game. She'll do to me what she did to that other girl. I can't risk my life—

            "Even if it is to save others?" the child mimicked the older girl's surprise. "You aren't as stupid as you seem. Think with your heart instead of your mind. Think with our heart."

            Something underneath the white cloak began to glow, and it filled the child's insides with a lurid light. Fate felt the same boiling energy inside her chest, somewhere where her heart should be… 

            "The Heart rules all."

            "But what is your name? I need to know who you are!"

            "I am your Fate."

            Fate would have asked more, but she couldn't. There was something holding her to the real world, something very intense and somehow… threatening. Yes, whatever was taking her back was threatened by something. It was calling her name.

            "Fate! Wake up! Fate! He locked us in! I can't get out!"

            "Huh? What are you talking about?"

            Fate rose from the bed with sleepy eyes. She felt like she had been submerged and her head hurt. She wished she had some sort of painkiller.

            "The room," she whispered. "It's back to normal."

            Yugi didn't seem to hear her; he was in a passionate panic. "We can't get out! The door won't open! It's locked and I'm scared! He's going to come back and finish the job he started last night!"

            "Yugi, it's a locked door. It's nothing special. I have the key somewhere on my person. Pegasus was kind enough to offer us someplace to hide. I escaped from that fate, and if you hadn't come here, you would be in one of the government's jail cells."

            "That's a lie!"

            "No, it isn't." She held up her arms and hands to show him all the barely-scabbed cuts and scrapes. "I got this from jumping out a window. They were after me and I couldn't let myself be captured, so I ran. I am the only one to ever escape capture. And I was lucky I got off with only a few scratches."

            Yugi let out an exasperated growl. "You don't understand! He almost killed me!"

            "Well, it is either the shady psycho or dying of starvation in a camp. I would choose Pegasus over the Queen of Spades any day!"

            The short boy shook his head. "What are you talking about? She just takes people and puts them in jail when they do something wrong. Who told you about camps?"

            "My family was in the Resistance. We know a lot of stuff, but it's not like we can tell the public that they're being lied to. My birth mother died fighting for what she believed in and I am going to finish what she started!"

            She immediately regretted what she had said, and she heard a key turn in the lock from outside.

            "I was listening to your little speech outside. It was quite moving. Thank you for the compliment," Pegasus said. "Oh, and if you want, there is food downstairs."

            Yugi was seething with rage.

            "What kind of food?" I asked, hoping that would briefly prevent a fight between the two. I was sure Pegasus would win.

            "Um… I think I have some soda, hot dogs, and rolls."

            Fate felt sickened. "I think Yugi would be interested. Do you use pesticide on your lawn?"

            "What is wrong with hot dogs?"

            "I'm a vegetarian."

            "Oh. So then, I don't think you're pleased with my diet, either, are you? If you want, I do think I have some snack bars _somewhere around the mansion. Oh well."_

            Fate gulped. "What exactly _is your diet?"_

            "Oh, nothing much, just blood. I have a lot of it saved in the freezer."

            She was feeling sicker every minute. Her high morals had landed her with a protector that _drank human blood! At that moment, she decided she loathed her namesakes more than anything in the world. _

            _This is the most demented thing you guys have ever done, she mumbled. _

            A flash of lightning followed in less than a second by a crack of thunder awoke Bakura. It was probably an hour before the sun _should set, but it was already darker than midnight outside. He mentally cursed himself for falling asleep, then stood._

            The next flash revealed a pale face staring at him, mere centimeters from his own identical face. The darkened face laughed and threw Bakura against the wall.

            He let out a groan and wondered why he had left himself open to such a predictable attack.

            "You forgot your first lesson, Bakura," Yami Bakura said coldly. "Always be alert. Letting down your guard opens you to attack."

            The thunderclaps were making Bakura very, very nervous. His sister had died in a thunderstorm just like this one. The lightning came right through the window and zapped her and she died… but then again, he was only five years old… not like it really mattered to anyone that she died. Hell, they didn't even remember her…

            Yami Bakura cast a worried glance at his other half. "Are you okay?"

            "I like storms," Bakura said. "I just don't like it when they're so loud and the sky is so… dark and gloomy."

            "Is that all?"

            "Yes."

            "Oh. I was beginning to think I gave you a concussion or you sustained some other brain damage… or something…"

            Bakura was aware of a kick landing under his chin and snapping his head upward. He grabbed the foot as it receded and twisted until Yami Bakura was on the ground. The blood welled up in his mouth and he swallowed it; it had been a really good kick. He let his yami come closer to him before jumping up and punching him in the jaw.

            Yami Bakura's eyes widened in surprise, but the gaze quickly changed to anger. Bakura's chocolate eyes closed, wondering how much it would hurt, but was surprised when no hit came. He opened his eyes and saw his yami standing, almost touching him, his fist raised for a blow.

            "Oh, Bakura…" he whispered. "Only you, Bakura…"

            He felt Yami Bakura kiss him. He would have screamed… if he hadn't actually enjoyed the kiss more than anything he had felt in the entire world. He kissed back.

            They held each other for what seemed like hours. Bakura felt himself fall asleep in his yami's arms. He felt one final kiss before everything was reduced to darkness.

            Yami Bakura's ring glowed and he merged with his lighter half. Opening his eyes, he got up from the ground and brushed himself off. He walked to the room Téa was sleeping in; she had not woken for over a day.

            _Bakura, wake up. This isn't the time for sleeping. I know you can wake up._

_            I'm tired, though… I'm so cold…_

            I need you conscious, Bakura. I need you conscious! You have to listen to me! The cold doesn't matter. Stay awake. Look through my eyes!

            Yami Bakura could smell her blood from where he stood at the door. Making his own physical form took a lot of energy, which was its own form of blood. Her blood's scent was almost maddening because it was so sweet, but there was another smell that was quickly overpowering it.

            He looked at her neck and saw the blood flowing through the arteries. Bakura let out a cry from inside his mind. _Don't hurt her!_

            _I won't._

            Before he even registered moving, Yami Bakura was kneeling beside the bed. Téa's neck was before him, almost inviting him, teasing his control. He looked at her face and brushed his hand across her forehead. It was cold, but she was not dead.

            Hot, warm blood was rushing into his mouth in but a few seconds. He held her close to him, savoring the thick liquid, but then he pushed her away. Something in her blood was not human; it reminded him of when Bakura had been given the blood. He had been sick for a few days, just like her.

            "That's impossible!" he hissed to himself. Blood was on his lips and at her throat. He pressed his fingers against it and stopped the bleeding. _The blood never lies._

            _Damn, _he thought. _What am I supposed to do now? _

            _What have you done? You didn't drink from her, did you? You said you wouldn't hurt her! What's going on?_

_            I didn't hurt her. Someone already did._

"Téa, wake up." He did not want to do this right now. "Téa! Get up _now._"

            Slowly, she opened her eyes, not totally awake, but not totally asleep, either. At least she was waking up. "Bakura…?"

            "No. I'm not Bakura, but I'm someone like him. I want you to get up now and come outside with me. We're not going far."

            He was the master of machines, the great God of Technology. No computer in the world stood a chance against him. No one could compete with his technological superiority. He could make holograms that were so real that you couldn't tell they weren't until it was too late.

            Once, a hologram had even killed someone.

            It hadn't been his fault. They had been careless with it, treating it like it wasn't there, but the real technological genius behind it made the holograms even feel real. Even a holographic claw could kill when he turned off the safety.

            The man had just been getting in the way.

            The cold-eyed teenager walked into his giant computer room, feeling comfort as soon as he walked in the door. He was safe now. No one could get to him in the computer room, not that anyone would dare tamper with his genius.

            "I was wondering when you would get here," someone said. He felt surprised, not only because someone had gotten into his safe place, but also because the person had been waiting for him to show up. He hadn't been warned of another presence. 

            A girl got out of the chair. He recognized her instantly as one of the kids at school, though he hadn't seen her in days. She was staring at him cruelly, almost teasing him with the ease she had broken into his house. He briefly considered having her arrested, but thought there might be some reason why she allowed herself to be caught by him in his own computer room. He had to admit, she had guts…

            "My name is Fate Légend. You are Seto Kaiba, correct?"

            "What do you want?"

            She walked over to him until she was standing in his personal space. "I have a proposition. I know what you are doing here and I know you don't like the government. You have been hacking into their systems for months to do whatever you can to stop them."

            "Have you come on behalf of the government?"

            "No. Maxamillion Pegasus."

            "What does he want with me?"

            "I come on behalf of him, but I am also coming for myself. I want the government to go down, and I know you have several advanced viruses that can help us."

            "So does your boss."

            "I never said he was my boss. I just said I was coming on behalf of him. I owe him a favor. The point is that you have the best of everything, and I want to know the exact location of the floating castle. We have already tried, and we can't get into it. I was hoping that you would have the hacking capabilities to help me."

            Seto Kaiba gave her a glare. "What is in it for me?"

            "The Queen of Spades is going down."

            He looked at her. She showed no signs of emotion, and he thought she may have been imitating his own expression to try to annoy him, but she did not laugh or show any signs of mockery. He did want to destroy the present government, but he didn't like the girl's idea of bringing down the main base.

            "It isn't a good idea. I can hack into it, but it will take hours, and I do not want to take the risk of being discovered. I prefer causing other disturbances that will not get me noticed," he told her. He reached for his watch and pretended to check the time, but he was really wondering what kind of hologram monster he could use to kill the intruder. She knew too much. 

            He pressed a button and watched a monster coalesce out of the air behind her. He smiled smugly and watched her. "Maybe there is something I could do…"

            The grotesque hand wrapped itself around her, and the smell of rotting flesh came through the air. The girl gasped and turned around, facing the biggest monster she had ever seen in her entire life. Seto Kaiba smiled at her. "You underestimate my resources, little girl, and you are lucky you meet your end so soon."

            Its claw went right through her midsection. She screamed at the top of her lung as he pulled her forward, blood falling on the floor, her eyes filled with pain. He listened to her pathetic screams and watched the entire display coldly. He would need to call someone in to clean up the mess before he started working.

            The monster reached into her chest and pulled out not a heart, but something made of gold. He growled and threw it aside. Kaiba stared at it with a detached sort of interest. Yes, it was something that was meant to be a heart.

            Fate's body convulsed as if it were going through a seizure. Blood was coming out of every single hole in her body, covering the floor, soaking his shoes. The body fell to the floor, still jerking, and then went still.

            He called the hologram back to where it belonged in his seemingly harmless watch. Another button was pressed and some unlucky servant came in through the door, gasped at the corpse, and looked at Kaiba as if waiting for orders.

            "Clean the blood off the floor. Find a box and put the body in it. Bring it to Maxamillion Pegasus. He should have known better than to send someone to me; she knew too much. It was dangerous. If you do exactly as I say, you may live, but if you don't, I will kill you where you stand."

            He looked at the golden heart. _I will keep this, Fate, if you don't mind…_

            Kaiba walked out of the room with the blood-covered object in his hand. He took it to the bathroom and washed the blood away from it. He realized it had been meant to function as a heart, and he smiled to himself. "I wonder how many years it kept her alive. Well, I suppose she served her purpose."

            Pegasus was pissed.

            Pegasus did not get mad easily.

            But when he did, even the most innocent child wasn't safe.

            "WHAT?" he screamed at the top of his lungs. Then he grabbed the flabbergasted guy who had the audacity to deliver that innocent girl's body here. She hadn't even done anything and Kaiba had killed her like a… torture toy. 

            This idiot was going to pay.

            Yugi, who was trying to use the stove for the first time in his life, watched as a dangerously sober Pegasus dragged a screaming middle-aged man toward a door and opened it. Yugi was very surprised, as he thought Pegasus was Mr. Nice. Unfortunately, Mr. Nice decided to leave for… somewhere else.

            "What is going on? Who is that?" Yugi asked.

            "That stupid son of a bitch named Kaiba killed Fate. He didn't just kill her. Her body is going to be buried closed-casket."

            With that, Pegasus slammed the door. He wanted to get drunk. He couldn't drink because he was a vampire. That's where the pawn came in. That guy would get drunk, and the alcohol content in his blood would make Pegasus drunk.

            Pegasus hadn't felt like getting drunk since several years ago, before he was made a vampire. He had been about nineteen and the love of his life had died. After that, he went to Egypt and when he came back he started getting drunk because it made him see stuff that no sober person would ever see.

            Well, his drunken days ended two weeks before he became a vampire when he discovered that the love of his life had been seeing someone else and the guy had killed her because he had found out she was married. 

            He chained the unfortunate soul to the wall. "You are getting drunk. Now." Pegasus took out a vintage wine bottle that had been keeping for about a hundred years. It was sweet wine, as he hadn't drunk anything else but sweet, for he didn't like the sour taste. He even had wine made for him by a grape juice company so it would be sweet enough for him.

            The guy was forced to drink the entire bottle. Pegasus artfully slashed the man's wrist in a non-fatal place that would hurt. He remembered this from the depression he suffered when he was about fifteen or so; he was lucky the psychiatrist got to him in time. 

            He pressed his lips to the wound and drank the blood, feeling the alcoholic poison inside it, the alcohol that would make him feel really good. He flashed the guy a smile, blood on his lips, and took out an empty canvas. Some of the blood decided to dribble down his chin and onto his expensive ruffled shirt.

            Not that he cared at the moment.

            He took out a paintbrush and dipped it in the bloody puddle that was forming on the floor. The wound would stop bleeding in about another minute. He knew that from experience. He decided to begin the painting, and spread the blood across the canvas. It soaked into the material, staining the material, and with each stroke Pegasus felt better.

            That blood was good.

            He slashed the man's cheek next, precision being his key, and the slow cut made the man gasp and almost faint. He already lost about a pint of blood, and he had never lost a great amount of blood before. Pegasus recognized the pain.

            It was the last night he had gotten drunk and he was walking home. It was maybe one in the morning, a few weeks before the curfew had been put in place. Everything was gradually being squeezed out of the public. The vampire would have killed him then if he hadn't seen the Eye, and he was left outside the front gates. One of his servants found him the following morning and brought him in.

            The pain had been almost too much to bear.

            "Oh? Does that hurt? I hope it does. Please tell me it hurts."

            A scream of affirmation.

            "Good. It would have worried me if it didn't. Would you like me to cauterize the wounds for you? I have a really nice hot poker heating up right now. You would like that, wouldn't you? Brilliant!"

            The hot poker stabbed the cuts all over the guy. Pegasus licked his lips and smelled the burning flesh. He fed on the screams like they were blood, soaking them in, and went back to paint the picture.

            "It is so satisfying to break the soul, isn't it? But I will enjoy breaking both your soul and your body. Yes… I will have a lot of fun with you tonight…" He lashed out with the hot poker again. The guy didn't scream. He just wept.

            "But my kids. I have kids. I have a family. I can't let them down."

            "You should have thought of that before you accepted Kaiba's request. Then again, we all make mistakes."

            After about another half hour, Pegasus was done toying with him. He had enough cold blood on the floor for the painting and it was totally finished. He hoped Kaiba-boy would like it. The doomed man would not stop crying.

            He kissed the throat softly, then drove his fangs in with a ferocity that made the man scream. All too soon, it was over. Pegasus leaned against the wall beside the guy, the blood dribbling from his mouth. His eyes glazed over and he sat there for what seemed like hours before he finally came to.

            "Oh. My. God."

            Pegasus just realized what he had done. There was blood all over his hands. He had never done this before, not even when he was angry, but the sight of that dead body when he opened the box…

            "Get a prostitute next time, Kaiba-boy," he mumbled. 

            The Queen of Spades knew everything. And she was pleased.


	7. Even More Insanity

            Authoress's Note: Okay! Here is the next chapter! I hope you enjoy it, as some things left off on bad notes, but I was advised that this was a Good Thing. I am really starting to like this character development, and killing off characters is so… soothing, especially original characters I have made. I didn't know I would end up killing Faith. Oh well, I guess it was unavoidable. *sigh* 

Disclaimer still applies along with all the old warnings. Oh, and I was in a good mood and I think I took something from Spaceballs… great movie. Well, anyway, this has a lighter note than the last chapter did. I like making fun of Seto Kaiba. He has such an adorable voice!

Oh. In one part of this, I will negate the "Yami" part of "Yami Bakura." Just decided to warn you. Not my fault if you're not reading this.

I LOVE PEGASUS! AND I JUST FOUND A WORD TO DESCRIBE HIS TOTALLY HOT EYE COLOR! YAY! 

            Yami Bakura knocked on the door. He was holding Téa's wrist in one of his hands, keeping her at the door. They had been let through the gates; Yami Bakura had been there before. He knew several of the guards.

            Someone opened the door. It was Yugi, and Yami Bakura was very surprised to find him. Yugi was munching on a hot dog and there was the faint sound of a television set from somewhere. 

            "Do you know where Pegasus is?" 

            The short teen replied, "The basement. He ran down there about twenty minutes ago. So, what are you guys doing here?"

            "We were hoping we could talk to him," Yami Bakura said. He knew what mood Pegasus was in if he went to the basement. "What happened?"

            "Someone delivered a severely maimed body to our front door. It was Fate; that's all I know about it."

            Téa looked like she was about ready to cry. "Fate? But she was so nice. We were going to start a vegetarian movement together. We wanted it to sweep across the world and take hold everywhere… why do all my friends have to die?"

            Yugi stared at her as if he didn't know what to do. "Um… I'm still here."

            "For how long?"

            Yami Bakura looked at them. "This reunion is very heartwarming, but I think we should continue the love fest _inside instead of __outside. People could be listening in on the conversation, and I don't think you two want to be caught."_

            He shoved the two inside the door and slammed it behind himself. There was a big box the size of a coffin in the hall, and it had been opened. He could smell the rotting flesh from where he stood, and he had no doubt that whatever was going on in the basement had to do with that body. Pegasus very rarely snapped, but when he did, he went all the way.

            "I'm thirsty," Téa said. "Yugi, is there anything else besides soda here? I don't drink soda. I'm against the principle."

            "There was something that looked like bottled tomato juice or grape juice in one of the refrigerators. It was hard to tell. The stuff didn't have a label."

            "Are you a vegetarian?" Yami Bakura asked her.

            She nodded. "We as a species are too greedy. We are wasting our resources. Animals are fine for pets, but we don't need to eat them. It is one of the reasons why they are becoming endangered. Vegetables and fruits are healthier than animals, and they're not disgusting, rotting meat. Fruits and vegetables taste better ad leave you feeling better than rotting meat does. I remember the last time I ate meat. I was so disgusted that I decided to never eat meat again."

            _If only you knew how far you were going to be going from vegetarianism, Yami Bakura thought. __I swear there are more and more vegetarians every day. Oh well, I'll just not tell her what the bottled stuff really is._

            "Téa, I'll go get us some juice." _I think Yugi can deal with this speech alone._

_            He walked to the kitchen and went to the special refrigerator. Eventually, he found the device used to uncap the bottles; he threw the tops in one of the recycling bins. He took a drink of it and was surprised at the fresh taste; Pegasus would need to tell him the supplier in the Underground Market._

            Téa seemed to like the taste. "This stuff is good, but I don't think it is grape juice or tomato juice. We had those at my house all the time; what kind of juice is it?" 

            "Pegasus likes exotic juices that few people would think of drinking. It is pomegranate or something," Yami Bakura lied. _Wonder what she would do if I called it "__Type__AB__ blood…"_

            The man in dark blue laughed insanely from his bedroom. He was plotting how to get into a computer system with an ordinary laptop computer instead of his big girl, and it was working quite well.

            "Soon, the entire technological world will bow to me…"

            Seto Kaiba laughed and got out his dolls. Pegasus, himself, that really cute girl named Téa, Yugi Motou… 

            "Pegasus! At last you will see who is in charge of the Internet!"

            He imitated Pegasus's voice. "No! No! I hate you so much! You'll never get away with making me look like a fool! No! Please stop this now!"

            "I have killed one of your minions, Maxamillion Pegasus. Surely you know I am invincible by now! I ruined your life and now I will ruin your bankroll!"

            "NO!"

            "And you, Téa. At last you will bow to me. At last you will know my true affections for you! I will rescue you from the clutches of what that dead girl called 'The Queen of Spades' and I will make you fall in love with me!"

            He imitated a girl's voice. "No! I hate you, I hate you! Leave me alone! I don't like you that way, Seto Kaiba! You killed my best friend!"

            "You know you want me. I can give you power. I know you are a vegetarian, and together we can make the word cower before us! You can illegalize eating animals! And now you will fall in love with me instead of Yugi Motou!"

            Kaiba imitated her voice again. "Oh, Kaiba! I never knew you were such an activist! This changes everything! I won't set my sights on that homosexual Yugi any longer; it was just a waste of my time! No… I want you!"

            "Call me Seto," he said.

            "It doesn't matter what I call you! Kiss me right now! Oh!" Kaiba made kissing noises and held the two dolls up together. "Oh, your eyes are so… soulless."

            Someone barged in through the doors. "Sir! We have found the location of your little brother!"

            "Knock, you idiot! Can't you see that I'm busy!" he screamed, then in a low voice: "Did you see anything?"

            "No, sir. I didn't see you playing with your dolls."

            "Good! Now get out!"

            He went over to his bed and sat down. Yes, he was in love with Téa. He had requested a doll to be made in her form, a life-size doll that was on his bed. He liked dressing it and undressing it. Téa was just so… Téa.

            "We can rule the world together," he told the air. "Oh, Téa…"

            Somewhere, all the way across town, a brown-haired girl was thinking of him in a positive light as well.

            She hadn't found out who killed her friend yet.

            Pegasus ran through the house like the Hounds of Hell were after him. He splashed against the wood floor (carpet was too easy to stain) and ran up the stairs. The flabbergasted teens watched him run by in a blur; two of them could identify the liquid, and the third was happily talking about her plot to take over the world.

            He found the bathroom easily enough, and his bloodied clothes splattered against the floor when he removed them. He took off his red jacket and started shredding it. He had at least ten more in the same style, so it wasn't too big a loss… 

            _Riiiip. Riiiip. Riiiip. Grind. He was so grateful that he had installed a giant garbage disposal machine on the wall. He knew control couldn't last forever…_

            Someone was knocking on the door. Bakura. He looked at it and made sure it was locked; the person on the other side was trying to open the door. He did little aside from rattle the lock. Pegasus took off his bloodstained ruffled shirt and ripped it up as well. The machine ground it. 

            He took off his shoes and decided they were too stained to keep. They were easily ripped apart with his exceptional strength.

            "Pegasus! Open this door right now or I will break it down."

            Off came his pants. _Riiiip. Riiiip. Riiiip. _"Go away!"

            He listened to the satisfying sound of them being ground into nothing. A bit of blood splattered when the pants went through and hit him on he cheek. He laughed. Why was everything always so full of blood? 

            Laughter.

            "Everything is pointless," he said. More laughter.

            "Pegasus!" Téa. She was one of his students at school. Really nice girl, always willing to stand up for everyone. She would make a great public speaker.

            More laughter. He wondered how much it would hurt to stick his finger in the grinder. No, never his hair, never his beautiful hair. He couldn't do something so stupid.

            "Open this door!" Bakura. Two faces. Literally. 

            He couldn't stop the laughter no matter how much he wanted.

            "He's gone mad…" Bakura again. It sounded perfect with the accent.

            "What's going on?"

            Yugi, the little innocent… he was so naïve. Pegasus wondered if he liked the hot dogs. It had to be pretty bad being cooped up in this house. Maybe in a few years he would let the kid out. Maybe when puberty finally hit the kid. Always was late…

            "Pegasus has locked himself in the bathroom. I think he's gone insane," Téa cried. "I loved his lectures! They were all from the heart!"

            Finally, he got rid of everything but his undergarments. They weren't stained; they were never stained. 

            "Maybe I can use my Millennium Puzzle to make Yami appear on the other side of the door. He can open it."

            Pegasus stopped mid-laugh. He realized what he had just done and wondered if he had lost it. He ran every single psychology book and psychological term through his mind.

            The term he was searching for was "nervous breakdown."

            Now he started crying. He gripped his head like there was a terrible pain and rocked back and forth on the slightly bloody floor. The pain dealt him another blow to the head and he felt himself fall on his side. He assumed a fetal position, gripping his head in both hands, wishing something would make the pain stop.

            A great cry rose from his lips; pure beauty. He let it hang in the air for what seemed forever, time frozen so it would never, ever stop.

            Someone slapped him.

            A surprised amber eye looked into startling violet eyes.

            The hand with the manicured nails was raised in the air, poised for another slap, but the blow never came. Pegasus lifted his hand and touched his stinging cheek. 

            It felt like the time when he was fifteen years old. It had been so warm; he was unaccustomed to the heat at his aunt's house. It was sometime around midsummer, about three months after his parents died.

            He stepped in the shower and put the water in neutral for about five minutes. Then, he slowly eased his way over a notch until it was cold. Finally, he yanked it all the way until the water froze his skin when it touched him. He stood there in the cold stream, the heat of the day only an arm's length away. The cold water had hurt his body more than anything in the world, but he liked it. It was a good pain, not like the pain of having fangs sink into your neck. It was a refreshing pain, a pain that let you know you'd be okay and you were still alive and well.

            Pegasus let his hand rest at his cheek for what seemed hours.

            He heard the lock click and a muffled gasp, most likely from Téa, but he saw nothing other than a colored blur, so vivid it made his eyes hurt. He clasped his hands to his head again as if he would rip off his hair.

            Bakura grabbed Pegasus's wrists; they relaxed under his touch. Pegasus looked into Bakura's chocolate eyes, entranced by the darkness of their color, the deepness, and then he was seeing himself through Bakura's eyes. Gods, he was such a sorry sight.

            He saw himself as no mirror could ever show him. Sitting on the floor, a glazed look in his visible eye, no hint that the Millennium Eye had just turned itself on. He was a mess, tears mixing with the blood on his face; hands had wiped blood through his white hair and there was the awful statuesque quality…

            It was enough to make anyone cry.

            Without a conscious thought, he was in his own body again, staring into Bakura's eyes. They were so deep and intoxicating and so concerned, but did he even deserve Bakura's concern?

            "Pegasus, it's okay."

            He made his eyes emotionless, soulless, like Kaiba's eyes. It was something he liked doing sometimes when he was in a bad mood, something so no untrained person could look and see his torment.

            "Okay? You mean there's nothing wrong with killing someone out of a blind rage and not even putting their fluids to use?" He used the full capabilities of his voice, the vocal technique he had so often invoked, and he knew he had done it the right way.

            Yami was kneeling right behind Bakura and it was obvious that the white-haired teen had pushed him aside.

            Téa decided to use the silence as a cue for a speech.

            "What you did was wrong, Pegasus, but that doesn't mean you can't do something about it. That body down there is already dead. Nothing you do can change it, and it's pointless to cry about something that is out of your hands. Just think of all the good things you have done to help people. I know you've saved Yugi from enduring what I had to go through at the camps. You helped Fate to the best of your ability. You showed all of us compassion." She accented the last word, apparently liking the word. 

            He had to admit that "compassion" sounded really pretty when she said it, almost like salt on a wound. He would have to teach her how to talk someday. She would learn how to kill with the force of her words… but what was he thinking?

            She continued. "I was given a choice. I could either die or fight death, and I am choosing to fight Death. The world knows her as the Order. Fate called her the Queen of Spades. Now, regardless of what she is called, she has to go down. I will not let someone aware of her evil sit back and cry for the rest of his life because he killed someone! It's just one small price to pay for the Ultimate Victory. We will make them pay for what they have done to us."

            _Since when was this a fight against that woman? _Pegasus thought. 

            It was cold.

            And dark.

            There was something touching her arm.

            Blood was dripping. She knew it was blood from the smell. When she moved, something sloshed at her feet. 

            "Die," someone whispered in her ear.

            "No," she replied.

            "Darn," it said. "Damn."

            "Shut up."

            Silence.

            Plop.

            More silence.

            Another plop.

            Something hairy brushed against her arm.

            She screamed.

            The plopping didn't want to stop.

            Silence.

            Deafening silence.

            Evil laughter.

            "No."

            "Why not?"

            "It's suicidal to think you can penetrate those defenses."

            "Well, if we don't do something, innocent souls are going to die!"

            "It doesn't matter. Innocents always die. They are the primary targets."

            "That doesn't make it right."

            "I know. It still happens."

            "You're a cold-hearted monster!"

            "No, I am a realist. I believe in humanity, but it isn't very productive."

            Bakura-who-wasn't-really-Bakura grinned. It was so fun to think what would happen when he let the _real_ Bakura have control.

            Téa said, "But if you aren't human, you are an animal."

            "Humans are animals. Are you trying to insult the Animal Kingdom?"

            "No." It seemed that however she tried, nothing she said was coming out right. 

            Pegasus, who had been silent, offered his two cents. "We are monsters lest monsters we become."

            Yugi blinked. He decided the back of his eyelids looked cool when he blinked. He blinked some more. It was more interesting than talking to the others at the table. Besides, Pegasus was just telling riddles that were impossible for people to understand.

            "Is something wrong with him?" Bakura asked.

            "Me?" Pegasus asked.

            "No. Yugi. He's blinking."

            Téa sighed and looked at Yugi. "He does stuff like that when he has no idea what is going on. He looks cute when he blinks like that. What do you mean by 'we are monsters let monsters we become.' Isn't that a little contradictory?"

            "Most things are," Pegasus replied. 

            Bakura-who-wasn't-really-Bakura smiled. He understood it perfectly. It was the kind of thing you had to live in order to understand. Hearing it reminded him of that Duel Monsters card called Change of Heart. The real Bakura seemed to like that card a lot. It was a little funny when you thought about it for a long time. 

            Pegasus took another sip of the blood. Téa still thought it was fruit juice. "There are different degrees of evil. For instance, stealing a pen isn't as bad as mass murder. Do you understand that? Sometimes you need to do bad things or you will do something worse in the long run."

            "That makes no sense."

            He sighed. This was going to be a long night. He thought break was supposed to get him away from teaching. "Let me put it this way. Say a girl named Nina knows she has something wrong with her. She is suffering from depression. Now let's say that she has a friend she trusts; her name is Lisa. Nina tells Lisa her secret and also tells her not to tell anyone. People who suffer from depression have a greater risk of suicide, and Nina expressed her desire to stop living in the conversation with Lisa. Should Lisa tell someone and break her promise or tell? If she breaks the promise, she will feel guilty and Nina might not trust her anymore. It would bring turmoil to Nina's life. But if she doesn't tell, Nina will commit suicide."

            Téa looked at him. "That is so simple. I would tell."

            "But wouldn't that be considered an evil or wrong thing to do from Nina's point of view?" Pegasus asked. "Does it make you a bad person?"

            The confused girl said, "Yes, I suppose it would be, but it would be the right thing to do in that case. I would feel guilty, but it would be for the best."

            "Now do you understand the paradox?"

            "Yes, I think I do. Sometimes a little darkness is needed to bring the light."

            He sighed. "Close enough. The Queen of Spades thinks that what she is doing is a good thing, killing people who are aware of her power so she can create a dream world for those who follow her and solve the problems of everyone else. She thinks the people she is getting rid of are wrong when they just think differently. We know the camps are a bad thing because they kill many innocent, unique people. Do you see how we have conflicting ideas?"

            Bakura jumped in. "She holds the upper hand," he told her. "The three of us are out of her grasp—

            "But Yugi-boy isn't," Pegasus finished.

            "So you're saying that because Yugi is too innocent to know he is in danger that we shouldn't fight?"

            Yugi zeroed in on that word. "Innocent," he repeated. "Innocent. Innocent. Naïve. Naïve. Innocent. Innocent. Naïve. Naïve." With each syllable, his tone was more acidic. "I am no more innocent than you are, Téa. Just because I'm short and I like thinking positively doesn't mean that I don't know what's going on! I have feelings too! I'm not a clown who exists for your amusement. I am a Millennium Item Holder and you cannot ignore me! I have a place here too!"

            "This is a dangerous world, Yugi-boy. You are a very intelligent young man, but some things are way out of your league. Do you have anything useful to say?"

            "I want to find Seto Kaiba and teach him a lesson. He is very smart and could come in handy if we get in a fix, but he's a cold-blooded murderer with blatant disregard for policies and no respect for life."

            Pegasus could think about two totally different things at the same time. "And your point is?" _I think his little brother may be one of his only weaknesses… well, I need to exploit that weakness, now don't I? _

            Bakura snickered. "I find you are not a proud owner of the attribute 'quick thinker,' Yugi. It took you _that_ long to figure out Seto Kaiba is a psychopath?"

            "He spends too much time with his machines," Téa scorned. "I think he forgets what being human is like."

            Yugi decided his presence had slipped out of their minds again. So, while they were busy arguing over why Seto Kaiba was evil, he slipped away.

            Like they would care.

            Saffron was immersed in the world of music. She had lit sage incense at the room was engulfed in smoke. She breathed it in, trying to find her center, and was just about settled down when the phone rang.

            She got up and answered it. _Why didn't I unplug the meaningless tool? I need to meditate for my physical, spiritual, and mental well-being. _

            "Hello. This is Maxamillion Pegasus. We have a problem."

            "Bonjor, Pegasus. Do you know what time it is?" Her voice was too sweet.

            "I'm sorry, but this is an emergency. It's something that involves the safety of everyone in the world. It is—

            "Time for the two in the morning Funny Bunny marathon?"

            "No. This is more important than a silly cartoon. The fate of the world is at stake here! And why didn't you tell me there was a Funny Bunny cartoon marathon?"

            She sighed. The static on the phone was giving her a really bad headache. She felt like killing someone. "There isn't. Look, I've got a headache. I'll be over there as soon as I can; I still need to do some things tonight."

            _I need blood, she thought. __I've almost gone a week without it. Amazing, but I can't starve myself if I am going to end up on another one of those conspiracy crusades of Pegasus's. Last one ended with us trapped in cards._

            That was the experience in which they met Bakura. He was a really cool kid, a little weird at times, but interesting. Sometimes she saw him during the day and he acted like he had no idea who she was; it was like there were two Bakuras. There was the one she knew, the one that trapped her in that card game, and then there was the innocent-eyed boy she saw everywhere else, a boy who had no idea there was a whole other world.

            A flashback caught her full-force.

_            Bakura ran into the three Ambrosia Red members full-force. He slammed them into the ground and got up, trying to run. There was someone after him; Saffron heard guns firing and wondered what drama was unfolding before her eyes. Bakura stood there as two armed men shot at him. The bullets halted in midair and exploded. _

_            "That is one of my students," she heard an awed Pegasus whisper. "I had no idea there was anything unusual about him…"_

_            The white-haired youth laughed, a lazy smile slithering across his face. His eyes shone with a malicious light; they flashed red. A mysterious object on his chest shone a brilliant gold, the fire of the sun contained in a mythical ring that belonged in a fairy tale, not real life. _

_            Laughter reverberated off the walls, its echo coming back thousands of times. A swirling tornado was forming around the boy, the thought-forms he manifested cackling; their fangs and claws glinted when the moonlight struck him. Yet, they weren't really around him, they were inside his eyes… they were swirling inside his eyes…_

_            His arms stretched out and he looked like a wind would blow him into the sky, and his eyes shut in anticipation. Demonic thought-forms ripped through his skin and hurtled themselves at the two guards, who were terrified. Screams ripped through the air with a ferocity Saffron had never, ever heard in her entire life. His eyes opened and there was blood everywhere on him, though it hadn't been there before._

_            "Mon dieu…" Rayenne whispered._

_            All of that blood…_

_            He turned toward them, as if half-asleep… those eyes opened, chocolate brown… vanilla hair…_

            "Bye," she said, hanging up the phone. She smelled the blood from that night long ago and wondered if it would ever happen again. 

            Yugi was cold, alone, afraid – everything. He longed for some sort of warmth, something that would remind him of home. He went back there and watched his grandfather wash dishes from outside the window, but when his grandfather saw a shadow in the window, he was forced to flee. It had been enough to see him that one last time before he went away.

            Yami materialized in front of him. He had never seen Yami before, but he heard a voice in his head sometimes. All he did was sit against the tree with stunned, silent eyes, wondering how he could remain innocent in such times.

            "You ran away from them."

            What else could he have done? He was a nuisance, as always, and no one paid attention to him or wanted him. After several minutes of silent brooding, he replied, "I don't want to be a shadow for the rest of my life. How would you feel if no one ever paid attention to you or wanted you?"

            "I can't relate to it."

            "Of course you can't! You're not me! You're not unbearably short!"

            Yami sat down beside Yugi and held the small boy close to him. Yugi moved closer to the taller boy, and they sat there for some time together. "Sometimes you need to learn how to play the hand you've been given. You don't need anyone to feel okay; the others may not need you now, but if you can do things alone, you don't need them at all. You were the one who brought everyone together. I think you should do what you were meant to do, whatever it is."

            "But I don't know what I'm supposed to do!"

            "Think about it for a moment, Yugi. What do you think you need to do? Are you going to sit here brooding or are you going to try to bring this organization down? What do you want to do?"

            Yugi felt the warmth of his other side, and he came in closer. "I think I should try to bring this organization down. I may be small, but I can do it as long as you're here to help me."

            "Then let's get the party started!"

            The taller boy helped the shorter one to his feet, and both stood there in the night, thinking and wondering what was about to happen. Yami moved toward Yugi first, and when their lips met, sparks flew around them and they were engulfed in a brilliant white light. Yami drew back and looked into the younger boy's eyes.

            "Aibou, sleep now."

            His eyes grew heavy and he felt himself drifting off to sleep, obeying the commands even though he wanted to stay awake. There was warmth everywhere around him, and he could no longer feel himself. It was like he had been pumped full of numbing drugs, and he fell asleep.

            Yami was alone in the night, standing under a tree, wondering if what he was about to do was the right thing. He looked up into the sky and murmured a spell from a long time ago, feeling himself rise from the ground. It was time to pay the Queen of Spades a visit.

            "Where did you get all of this leather and all of these ancient weapons?" Téa asked.

            Pegasus looked at her. "Some things are just not worth talking about."


	8. The Light in the Dark

            Authoress's Note: I'm back! I finally have some movement going on, and I need to get this one finished so I can start on my next one about The Dreamy Pegasus. 

                        I _still don't own "Yu-Gi-Oh!" All the old warnings still apply._

Okay everyone! This is the (hopefully) long-awaited chapter of the story. And there WILL be an epilogue, just so you know. Also, PEOPLE WHO LIKE BAKURA! I LIKE HIM TOO! WHEN YOU FINISH READING THIS CHAPTER, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND ME WHEN I SAY, "NO!!!!" I STILL HAVE AN EPILOGUE! 

Thank you all for sticking with me this far. I present the story.

            The sunset was the color of fire, and the night was awakening with new strength and vitality. Leather-clad, mace-carrying figures stood against the sunset with an air of total superiority over the day. Two of them were white-haired, which was slightly pink in the light of the sun. Another was red-haired and fiery, and the third had auburn hair. Finally, eyes fell to a girl who could be no more than seven, the only one not leather-clad. She was wearing a lace dress.

            A helicopter was coming at them, and the tall young man with the white hair looked upward. He waited for it to land, and the dark-eyed pilot looked at them. He dismissed him with a hand signal and put on the mufflers, motioning everyone toward the waiting bird of prey. 

            Bakura-who-was-really-Bakura was tense. He didn't like being around all of these people he didn't know; Yami Bakura let him be in control as long as he did everything his yami told him to do, for he couldn't let anyone know there were two of them. Of course, he knew they suspected it, but what could the Bakuras do about that aspect?

            _But why must we go alone? Bakura asked his darker side._

            _I don't want to involve the others in this. They will free the camps. We will go for the Queen herself. Why shouldn't we?_

_            Maybe it is too difficult to do alone. She is powerful._

_            Yes, but I am also powerful… and I have you._

            Bakura blushed, unaware of the dark form that flattened itself to the bottom of the helicopter.

            Yami clung to the bottom of the helicopter, glad he was strong enough to accomplish such a feat, and felt the helicopter lurch into the air clumsily, the product of a flier who was less than perfect. He closed his eyes, slightly sickened, and knew he would survive the flight.

            _This helicopter is going to fly very high, Yami. I don't think our body can survive the lack of pressure! Yugi pleaded._

            _Aibou, it will be okay. I can manage this; one doesn't become Pharaoh because he is weak. He renewed his hold on the bottom of the craft. __Besides, this is the only way we can do this._

_            How do you know where they are going?_

_            I heard them talking._

_            Over all of that noise… how is that possible…?_

_            It's a lot easier than you think it is, aibou._

_  _

            Pegasus watched Bakura drift off to sleep beside him, his eyes shut tight, his form huddled against the wall. He could handle all the controls by himself, and someone had needed to sit in the passenger seat beside him so the weight would be distributed equally.

            He let one of his hands brush against Bakura's face.

            _He looks like a perfect little angel…_

            Frightened, Pegasus took his hand back with a jolt. _What am I thinking, touching him? Gods, what did I do that for? _

            Bakura was the only one Pegasus didn't want to read, and the touch made it almost impossible not to read the young teen. The Eye wanted so much to enter into the younger one's mind, and it had stepped in sometimes when Pegasus was tired, weary, or too weak to fight it; he wished the boy knew how to put up shields.

            The vampire boy let out a small moan and opened his eyes until they were at half-mast. His position shifted, and there was a peculiar feverish tint to his pale cheeks. He curled into a fetal position and let out a low moan. 

            Pegasus's vision shifted so he could see the aura, which was the most ethical thing he could have done in that situation. It was dominated by a red-hued pain that throbbed in time with Bakura's slowing heart. He let out another low moan; Pegasus let his fingers brush the sweat off the boy's brow.

            "Why didn't you _tell me it hadn't happened yet?" he murmured, switching the plane into autopilot. He gathered the boy into his arms until the head was resting against his stomach. "Foolish child," he whispered._

            He bit his wrist and lowered the bleeding thing to Bakura's lips. The boy kept them closed, his eyes open though not seeing anything. "Damn you, Bakura. You're going to have to drink if you want to stop the pain."

            Bakura heard Pegasus speak somewhere nearby, and there was something wet and hot at his lips. He felt his teeth tingle and he smelled the blood, but he didn't know what he should do. Yami Bakura was yelling at him to stay awake, but Bakura was having a hard time with it. The pain was so complete that it hurt every time he breathed.

            "Drink!" he heard Pegasus scream.

            "Why?" he whispered. The word was muffled and he felt the blood come into his mouth. It was irresistible, and his lips locked around the wound. He swallowed the first draught of liquid and the pain lessened.

            The one holding him was weakening when he shoved the wrist away. There was blood on his mouth, and he saw the wound heal as soon as his lips left it. Pegasus was gasping in pain. His fangs were extended and he was frightfully pale.

            "I'm sorry," Bakura said.

            "It's okay," Pegasus replied. "You should have told us."

            "I didn't know," Bakura said. "Is it over?"

            "No, not for a while…"

            As if on some sickening cue that some unnamed authoress devised, another stabbing pain seared at Bakura's abdomen. Pegasus wrapped his arms around the younger boy, who clutched at Pegasus like a little kid.

            "I'll be okay," Bakura said, pushing Pegasus away weakly. "Just fly this thing."

            Wind whistled through the emptying castle. She had dismissed all of her minions but one, and her eyeless face gazed out at the water. Something that looked like a black tear ran down her painted cheek.

            "It is almost finished." Her voice cut through the silence like a knife. "You have been good to me, child. In fact, I almost think of you as an equal. You alone are my heir out of all of these. It is you who must one day rise up and take over when I am gone."

            The young man, barely seventeen, looked up at his queen from the spot where he kneeled on the windswept floor. He had beautiful, curly black hair that almost fell to his shoulders, and his eyes were a tormented, chaotic green. The hair whipped at his face in the harsh wind, and his eyes were at half-mast. His form shuddered as her clawed hand rested on his forehead.

            "One so young should not be made to suffer," she told him. "You will be loyal to me even after I am gone, and that is your curse, young one. I will let you carry out my last instructions now, and then you must leave this place."

            "My Queen, tell me what you wish of me now. As you speak, I obey."

            She procured from her person a vial of blackish-green liquid; it swirled around in its container like Chaos about ready to be born. "Drink, Dreyen." She opened the vial and lowered it to his lips. He swallowed it. "You are my heir."

            He fell back onto the floor and grasped at his stomach, trying to vomit and get the foreign poison out of him, but it spread so quickly he could do nothing. He felt something streak across his insides, and his face began to glow in tendrils. He let out one last breath and then was still, lying on the floor as if in sleep, no pulse or breath to show that life still remained inside him.

            The Queen of Spades dragged the body toward the full window and looked down at the raging sea. With a final kiss, she threw the not-dead boy out and watched his form fall, her eyeless sockets seeing more than anyone could possibly imagine. 

            It landed somewhere around midnight on the land, and people scattered to get away from it. A solitary figure waited in the shadows around one of the larger buildings, his form concealed both by shadows and by the claret velvet cloak he wore over his form.

            Bakura-who-was-really-Bakura looked around wearily, his vision blurring slightly as he saw what was going on around him, and he staggered for the door. Pegasus helped him out with a firm hand.

            "I suppose this is goodbye." Gods, Bakura could listen to Pegasus talk for days…

            "How did you know I would leave you here?" Bakura asked him.

            Pegasus gathered his hair around his hand and lifted it away from the Millennium Eye. "I would not have known if we hadn't touched. No matter how great I shield, when I touch someone, it activates."

            "I wish things had been different. I didn't want it to be this way. Doesn't it seem like there's something wrong with life as we know it? Like it is an illusion?" He felt his eyes beginning to tear. "Every time I close my eyes I remember something I don't want to remember. It's like I'm the Lady Amalthea in that book, _The Last Unicorn."_

            The taller vampire smiled and ran his hand through the other's hair. "And who is your Prince Lir? Who is the one that tries to win your heart?"

            "You," Bakura said, and without another word, their lips met. The surprised Pegasus's eyes widened for several seconds, but he slowly relaxed into the kiss.

            Pegasus grasped Bakura to him tightly and drew his mouth back slowly. "Take care of yourself. I wouldn't want anything to happen to you. Promise me you'll be alive when you come back."

            _Everyone I love dies… everyone I love dies… Urania, Cynthia… not you, Bakura… please not you… Pegasus thought to himself._

            He watched Bakura go back in the helicopter and he saw it take off; a feeling of dread was building in his stomach, but then it passed like it had never been there. He turned to his waiting comrades; none of them knew the shadow was there but him, and no one could have known but him because the shadowy character was so powerful.

            The cruel-eyed CEO stood on the roof of his mansion with a telescope. Briefly, he watched a comet streak in the sky, but then he turned to the moon. A face stared at him from the darkness behind him, flashing out of sight as soon as he turned to try to register that he had seen something out of the corner of his eye.

            Midnight winds were whispering in his ear, and his coat billowed around him in the way it always did, even though it should have been billowing in a totally different direction. Sometimes, he thought the coat was possessed, and sometimes he felt something else in his mind when he was standing on the rooftop; he had felt the presence since he was a very young child and it comforted in times of need, but it also fed his desire for torture and death. Sometimes it made him black out only to discover he was in an entirely different place.

            "It's too late to turn back now," he said to himself, his smooth vocal qualities melding the words into a melodic prayer that was not really a prayer even as he wished it was a prayer.

            "It's too late to turn back now," a voice mimicked behind him. It was a girl's voice, and it seemed familiar. He saw a face in his mind for a split second, but the girl that called herself Fate had died several nights ago by his own hand. He hadn't wanted to kill her, but he had no choice. She knew too much about him.

            He thought he saw the face again, so he turned around and faced the seemingly empty rooftop. Shadows lurked everywhere, seething and bubbling as the wind rose and fell. Some of them belonged to tall trees, and there were some that shouldn't have been there at all but were there.

            Kaiba let out a low hiss when he saw the darkened figure hiding in the shadow of one of the larger trees. Seeing that she was discovered, she got to her feet and came toward him. He could see that the girl was wearing a cloak, but beneath that cloak was a bare leg that came out, and he could see uncovered breasts in the moonlight when she moved in just the right way. 

            It was Fate.

            She grabbed him by the neck and hoisted him in the air, her lips twisted in a cruel smile, her eyes devoid of everything. It was like she was a ghost, a mere phantasm that had come to seek revenge on what had taken its life. Yet she was solid and very real to him, and nothing marred her almost perfect form that was concealed beneath the cloak. It was driving him mad, her body being so close to him.

            As if sensing his desire, she drew her lips and pressed them against his. Her touch bruised his lips because it was so forceful and cruel, and she drew away from him. He felt himself fall back onto the roof and tasted blood.

            "Damn you," he whispered.

            "You will take me to the castle that rests upon the air."

            "No."

            "You need to be there for your brother, don't you? If I kill you, your brother will have no one to take care of him. You will have broken your promise."

            That threat was the only thing substantial enough for Kaiba to back down. He looked at her warily. "What do you want me to do?"

            "Just as I said, no strings attached. Bring me to the castle; you don't even have to stay and risk your life. Turn right back. And if you don't, you will die somehow. It is as simple as that. I mean, even if you are somehow beyond my power, it doesn't mean your brother cannot be destroyed."

            Kaiba looked at her. "You may take my helicopter. Don't bother to return it."

            "You would do that for me?"

            "Yes."

            She grabbed his collar and dragged him in until they were very, very close to each other. His cold blue eyes widened as he saw her up close; she looked like a ghost. He could almost see through her because her form was so thin, and her hands were very cold.

            "I don't believe you, Seto Kaiba. You will be coming with me."

            _Soon…_

            The blue-haired vampire was someone Pegasus vaguely remembered from the night he was made; it could have been several years ago or it could have been many centuries ago that Pegasus was made a vampire. He didn't really know, but he didn't feel like he was several centuries old. 

            He walked out of the shadows with feline grace, almost like a king. His white hands were resting on his hood; he took it off with a simple gesture and gazed upon the would-be destroyers with something that might have been respect, but it also could have been superiority. 

            Pegasus bowed to the strange vampire that moved like a shadow, the very essence of the night flowing among all the vampires. He remembered for the second time an old saying he heard; vampires were stronger in groups than they were alone. It was something that had to do with the force that animated them; auras were strengthened by sympathetic auras.

            "You have come to destroy the island," the vampire said softly. 

            A black velvet cloak against the night sky… the scorching Egyptian sun… a gloved hand reaching down from a carriage… a lock of curly dark brown hair falling into blue eyes that mirrored the heavens… his hand grasping the same gloved hand as her screams ripped through the air…

            He stepped up to the blue-haired one. "We have come to liberate the occupants of this island from the authoritarian dictatorship of the one called the Queen of Spades. Her reign of terror will not see through this night."

            "When you have liberated them, where will they go? There is no way on the island once the minions have been destroyed. They have all of their vessels under their control. If under attack, they have been ordered to destroy the only means of escape."

            The blue-haired one extracted a gun from the folds of his cloak. His words were still hanging in the air. His eyes rested on Téa; they stayed there for quite some time. 

            The object of scrutiny self-consciously raked her fingers through her hair. "Well, it's a lot better than the endless dying that is happening here. Some of the people here are my friends, and I am going to free them from the dark shroud even if it takes my life!"

            "Well said, Téa. Now let's go liberate your friends from the 'dark shroud.' Pray it does not take your life, for you don't have much to give."

            She held her elongated fingernails against his back while he flew. There was a storm brewing on the horizon, and in the distance they could see the small form of another plane. Beyond that was a sinister shadow that was not a shadow, something not even the storms could hide from view. 

            It was the castle.

            "So, what do we do once we get inside?" Kaiba asked her coolly. "I figure that while I'm in the area, I might as well do some damage."

            Fate looked into his eyes. "Find whoever is inside and bring them away. If there is no one you can find, go to this ship and get out as soon as you can. I cannot walk away from my destiny; I want to take down only the ones I need to."

            "What are you going to do?"

            She was silent for quite some time before she evaded his answer. "Will you do as I say, backstabber?"

            "Maybe – if you make it worth my while."

            "By the time you arrive home, there will be no more empire to hide your operations from. You will be freer than the birds flying in the sky."

            The helicopter knew it was being followed. Bakura saw the outline through the mirrors, and he was slightly frightened. If it was one of the Queen's machines of terror, he would be struck down as soon as he came in range.

            _If I don't hit the storm first…_

            Serpentine, the thought slithered through his mind. The storm was like a great mass of whirling dark energy, completely surrounding the dreadful castle that he could barely see from the outside. It shone with its own light from the inside; no wonder, for there was no way the sunlight could have come through.

            It made him harden just to think about sunlight. Days ago, he took advantage of its warmth and thought nothing bad could happen to him. Now, though, his thoughts changed. He felt inside him a sickening dread of the rising sun, even as he knew he could withstand its merciless rays. In one moment, he had lost his love of sunlight and that love had been replaced by an incessant loathing.

            He had been the first one awake, maybe an hour before sunset, on that night they left on their mission. Some strange urgency forced him to walk outside and take a walk in the park. There, he leaned against a rather large tree and stared at the sunset. He drank in the sight and in that moment there was nothing else that mattered.

            Might as well have been his first sunset for how he had stared at it. The sky on one part of the horizon had darkened to a beautiful indigo-violet; the sky was a darkened blue until you reached the vicinity of the setting sun. There, he saw shades of pink, some that were almost red in color; they made beautiful colors on the clouds. Inside him, energy seemed to bubble and foam as the sun sank lower, a full cup instead of one that had only been halfway filled. The sun sank slowly like it knew he was there watching it as no mortal could see it, and it teased him with its magnificence and beauty. Then it sank below the horizon and there was red fire in the sky. It was then that he turned his back on the park and walked back, the moments embedded in his mind.

            Perhaps he would never see the sunset again… never see the sun rise in the morning… never feel real food pass between his lips…

            He was thinking of that sunset as he flew through the darkened sky. As if the churning darkness saw the sunset in his mind, it parted before him, a steady path open before him. He could see the castle clearly now; it floated above the water like doom. 

            And then he said farewell to sunlight and set out to be what he would become.

            It was an hour since they had begun liberating the slaves, an hour since the boats had first been destroyed. The masses screamed with delight, rising against the armed men that held them, assisted by the darkened strangers they didn't know at all. 

            Téa found herself whispering Joey's name under her breath. He had often talked about rising against the masters before the one who called himself Midnight Blue. He would have been proud if he had seen her there, rallying the people with her speeches; she left the fighting to the others.

            Once, she thought violence never solved anything.

            That was before the Queen of Spades changed her life. The Queen taught her what fear meant and how you needed to see every day and night like it was the last one ever, and she had felt that urgency even more after people began to disappear.

            Now, violence was the only thing that would liberate the oppressed. No one here could have their old lives back, of course, and everything that had been done to them could not be erased for good, but they deserved a second chance. Many of them had never done anything wrong. There were people here because they had spoken out of turn at a social gathering, children who had been ripped from their parents and brought here for laughing or breathing or something petty. 

            The men, women, and children stood before her now. She had herded them all into the largest house possible so they wouldn't be hurt. Even now, she could hear guns being fired at things the officers could not see; shadows that would pounce on them when they turned around to look for something that wasn't there. Screams ripped through the night from those unlucky enough to be caught outside.

            Saffron opened the door to the outside and came in quickly. She was holding a guard; she went into a private room that wasn't occupied and gestured for Téa to follow her. The girl stared at the guard, not understanding, but she followed anyway.

            "You're hungry," Saffron said softly. "I can see it in your eyes."

            Hungry… yes, that was what was tearing at her insides. She thought she was getting cramps, which she was used to tuning out. She didn't believe in medication; when she could, she used acupuncture to soothe the cramps. She had never thought that she was feeling hunger at the moment. It was too strong for it to be hunger.

            "I brought him for you."

            Téa didn't understand what Saffron was talking about. The spicy vampire let out an exasperated sigh and tilted the entranced guard's neck to the side. The exposed vein glared out at Téa; she had to look away to keep herself in check. At last, she understood what Saffron meant.

            "I don't like the idea of gnawing on someone's neck. I'm a vegetarian."

            "A vampire who sucks on the 'blood' of plants; that's something I've never heard before." Saffron was obviously enjoying herself. Her mouth went to the man's neck and she bled him slightly, glancing at the girl. Then she threw him at her.

            She looked at the blood Saffron had drawn; its smell was almost intoxicating. Ever so slowly, her human mind succumbed to the animal instincts and she was grasping the man in a death grip before she could control herself. She was aware of something in the air, a feeling that she knew at once as Peace, and the man was dead in her arms and Saffron was smiling at her and she was running out of the room and into the fray outside and there was so much blood and death and destruction…

            Téa saw another guard, but he didn't see her…

            He was down before he even knew what hit him.

            Bakura was standing inside, unaware of the dark shape approaching him. A cold, clammy hand reached out and put itself over his mouth. Every single horror movie he had ever seen rushed back at him in those moments.

            He screamed.

            And screamed.

            And screamed.

            Violet eyes stared at him from the darkness. He stopped screaming and simply stared at their beauty. It was someone he knew, yes, but all of his memories seemed to leave him as soon as he looked into those eyes. He looked at the carefully sculpted hand pressed against his mouth and the nicely-shaped arms. 

            He remembered the boy. It was Yugi, only there was something different about him. He seemed crueler and released an aura of power. His eyes were narrower and he was taller, almost as tall as Bakura, and he held himself like a Pharaoh.

            The white-haired angel put his hand on the hand of the ancient in the body of an innocent and slowly applied pressure, willing the unwanted hand away from his mouth. A look of understanding passed between them, both knowing what they wanted, both possessing the power to change what they wanted to change. 

            Both of them turned and looked at the doorway they needed to pass through, and, silently, they did so. The white-haired angel heard his dark side talking in his mind and the familiar numbing began. He was trying to take over. He wanted to destroy the evil for himself, but he was of the same darkness, wasn't he? Pale and beautiful, his dark half possessed all the qualities of both a demon and an angel, but he was supposed to be all of Bakura's demons summed up into one person. He was supposed to be the demon Bakura, and the light Bakura was supposed to be an angelic being totally devoid of sin. But what happened in situations like the present where good and evil blurred together until they were one and the same? What if there was darkness inside the light and light inside the darkness? Or what if they didn't exist at all….?

            Over the tempest of his thoughts, he heard his darkness exclaim, _yes, and then there was all of this emotion and thought flowing between them, and they might have been the same person but they weren't the same person. There was Yami Bakura and there was the real Bakura. _

            And he opened his eyes in his soul room and looked at the screen that played across one wall. It was a black-and-white vision of what Yami Bakura was seeing, all of the sounds muted, more like an old-fashioned film than what was happening in real life.

            He saw himself turn to what was probably not Yugi. Yami Bakura broke out into a run, determined to get to the end of the hall. There was the faint sound of another airborne machine about ready to land. 

            Whether he was ready to or not, the final fight had begun.

            They were liberated at last, and, as they stepped outside, a great cheer rose up among them. Small children picked up pieces of the bodies and danced around, singing songs and overjoyed to finally be free. 

            And the vampires were standing there and it was probably two hours before sunrise. Bakura had not come for them, and they were still here. All were tired as they stood in the almost lightened world.

            "What if he doesn't come?"

            "He will come," Pegasus said. 

"Very well." Midnight Blue decided not to press the issue; Pegasus knew the odds were against his fledgling boy. 

            Bakura-who-was-not-really-Bakura let out a cry as soon as he saw the dark Queen. This was the one who had hurt his aibou – the word didn't want to come out, but it did. The mental torture that had been inflicted on the poor light had been the result of her plans. He would not be a vampire if it were not for this evil monstrosity that sat before him.

            Her eyes were closed, but she seemed to know they were there.

            "Welcome to my domain," she said casually. Her eyes were still closed; Bakura wondered what was wrong with them.

            Though her voice emanated power, he could see the ashen appearance from her skin and the withdrawn, starved look to her present body. It was as if the power she used was eating her from the inside out; she was ravaging in beauty but old and withering. It was as if her power had left her.

            She rose from the throne and the lids of her eyes came up and revealed… empty sockets. Bakura recoiled at the sight.

            "What is wrong, angel?" she asked him sweetly. The wind was beginning to howl again. "I didn't mean to frighten you; after all, you have come to kill me. What good does a frightened assassin do against the Queen of Spades?"

            He winced at her words. He searched for his light to make sure he was safe before he made his mood. The Ring, which he usually had cloaked, rippled into being. The Queen looked at him, feigning surprise, and he shoved her into the wall with the Ring's power. She lay crumpled for almost a minute before she got up unscathed. Though she had no eyes, he knew she was looking at him.

            "Not bad, angel." She threw him into the wall with a burst of her own power, but she kept the pressure up instead of letting him fall. Composed, she walked toward him. She paid no attention to Not-Yugi and smiled at Bakura.

            "You are a fine specimen. It's a shame that I didn't enslave you earlier if I had known how much fun you would be."

            Another burst of pain seared his nervous system. He grasped his own magic with his mind and sent the pain back at her. She doubled over under the weight of what he was feeling, losing control of the bonds that held him against the wall. He slid down and kicked her. She fell to the ground. He raised his hand for another blow but someone caught his hand in midair. It was Not-Yugi. He looked at Bakura with understanding, almost like the Pharaoh knew what was going on in Bakura's mind at the moment. He relaxed his grip on Bakura's arm.

            Her hand shot out and she grabbed Not-Yugi by the collar. With a show of might, she had thrown him all the way across the room and out a window. He was holding on by his fingertips now, the churning storm below him. She turned to Bakura with a drunken grin on her perfect face. "Now, where were we, my angel?"

            She grabbed his arm and twisted until he felt pain. The next thing he knew, he was on his back doubled over in pain from where she had hit him in the stomach. His arm had been meant to distract him while she went for what he wanted. He understood that now. Bakura grabbed her arm when she tried to attack him next and beat her head against the floor; once, twice, a third time… 

            The Queen of Spades flipped him onto his back and smiled. There was blood running down her mouth and onto the high collar of her dress. The top of her head was dented; evidence of what he had done to her. The blood was coming out of her mouth with no sign of stopping. It fell onto his clothing and soaked through his shirt to his skin. It was black blood, the blood of something that had been dead for a long time, unlike the immortal elixir that flowed through his veins. He felt his skin repel the black poison; when his blood found it could not get rid of the foul poison against his chest, there was a searing pain in his chest. She laughed at him.

            "To think that you, a mere child-angel, could defeat the Queen of Spades!" she exclaimed. He felt another searing pain coming from his chest; it was like nothing he had experienced before. It was all the times he had hit his light without warning. It was trust, love, hate – there was no end to what the pain was.

            She drew her lips across his face and he screamed at the top of his lungs. Satisfied with herself, she turned away. Not-Yugi had lost his hold on the ledge and was falling. He thought about the maelstrom and wondered if anyone could survive it, but he knew there had to be a way for it to happen. He had survived holding onto the bottom of the plane coming through and he had the Millennium Puzzle. Wait, why _was he so concerned about the one who had banished him thousands of years ago?_

            Her fingernails were digging into his skin. It didn't hurt as much as her blood, but it still made him wince. He arched his back in pain and let out a hiss. The darkness darkened around him, though he didn't know how it was possible because it was already almost black. Then he saw a light before him. 

            That conversation from long ago…

            _"Sometimes there must be a sacrifice for there to be new hope. Ever mindful of the sacrifice we must make, we strip away what we do not need and give it to those who do need it."_

_            "I don't understand, Father."_

_            "You will understand someday. I see great things ahead of you, my son."_

            The light before him took the form. He saw the golden light of Ra glaring at him; he knew the great God himself was watching him in that moment. Ra, the Sun, the one all had worshipped in his life even as they sought out Osiris in the darkness. Even has he had plundered the tombs…

            He had always lived in the cover of darkness. But would – could – his light live without the sunlight? He was not in the room anymore, but standing before all of the Gods. They looked down at him with their painted faces. He saw Bast with her cat face standing next to her darker Sekhemet, Isis and Osiris sitting on the thrones below Ra.

            As he thought about his decision, he felt others in the room. Many others, all like him, all counting on this one decision. For it was not a decision they could make. It could only be his. He felt a familiar presence. His light was standing in front of him. 

            "Whatever decision you make, I'm right behind you."

            "Can you survive?"

            The pale light nodded. "As long as I always remember that last sunrise."

            Last sunrise…

            He reached for his other and they grasped hands. Together, they turned toward the Council of the Gods. 

            "Immortals are always night walkers. We have taken advantage of our ability to walk in the day, so now it is time for there to be only night. I will sacrifice the sun so that others may live in the sun. We will sacrifice our days for our endless nights. I just ask for one more sunset for those of my blood who have not decided, who do not know what I am saying before you."

            Against the glaring golden light, he saw Ra smile.

            When he opened his eyes, there was still that golden light. The Queen of Spades had turned around. A strange girl was standing in the doorway. No, it wasn't a strange girl. It was Fate…

            Her chest was glowing with a light. She was speaking words to the Queen, words that made the eyeless girl scream. He could hear the sighing structure and the walls were coming down. In a panic, he stood, greeted by an onslaught of pain. Fate held her hand out at the Queen and whispered the Ancient Words.

            "Qui'dara montra everino moare mkuond oloiu, moreld o ewdk oweddl weot. Oui'kara montra everino monare mkuond louio!"

            The burning light spread from Fate like the rays of Judgment coming to claim the sinful. The ground ruptured beneath her and he felt himself engulfed with light. It was like his body was coming apart. There were the screams of the Queen and an explosion and burning pain. He was burning! He ran through the light and tried to get away from the flames. There were rocks everywhere and there was that ripping sensation coming from everywhere. It was a thousand daylights! A fire so strong it rendered him helpless against its eternal flame…

            The explosion ripped through the night sky with a ferocity that made the windows of the buildings shudder.

            Vampire and human looked up at what was happening, and the shockwave spread throughout the entire world. 

            "Do you think Bakura was in that?" Téa asked him.

            A piece of gold came hurtling at them from the explosion. The piece that called itself the Eye… The group stared at it. Pegasus doubled over and Téa ran to him. She put her arm around his back. They were crying together for what seemed forever; the predawn light dried their tears.

            They stood. Pegasus picked the eye up and looked at the sky. A helicopter had landed on the island, the others told him. It was piloted by Seto Kaiba and he was going to take them all back home and send for boats to pick up the people on the island.

            Pegasus was lead to the helicopter. He had not felt such grief since the night his Cynthia was taken from him.

            "Kaiba-boy, what are you doing here?"

            "I thought I was needed," he replied.

            "What happened at the blast site?"

            He shook his head. "I don't know. I didn't stick around long enough to find out."

            A cold, wet Yugi was sitting in the passenger's seat. He was wrapped in a blanket and looked like he had been through several natural disasters. 

            "Hey," he said with a forlorn smile. They mirrored his look and murmured similar phrases.

            For some reason, as they were flying, the vampires were engrossed in the rising sun. Little Yugi was resting his head on Midnight Blue's lap.

            Sometimes life is like the world. There is light and there is darkness. People die that shouldn't die; many more people live who do not deserve to live. Some have guardian angels and some do not. 

            Rarely is the playing field ever level.

            _I wish I told him I love him, Pegasus thought to himself as he drifted off to sleep. _

            Maybe Bakura had known.

            It's not like Pegasus was the only one who could read minds.


	9. Epilogue: Shadow of the Night

            Authoress's Notes: Here is the conclusion to the story. Disclaimer applies. The italics are either what Bakura is saying or something from his journal. Everything else is basically the way it should be. At last! The final part!

EPILOGUE: SHADOW OF THE NIGHT

            _Fate works in mysterious ways. For all that has happened, I should be dead. Instead, my skin has been slightly bronzed from the light. I can pass under electric lights with ease; the rest of my kind are having a hard time coping, or so I hear. I walked past Pegasus the other night and he didn't recognize me. _

_            He climbed over the wall and rested against the inside for a moment. There was only a little time before the dawn would burn him to a cinder. _

_            I remember the press of his lips against mine, and it brings tears to my eyes to think of how it could have been instead of how it has ended. I long for another kiss. I want to speak so much but I haven't the words to say. There is emptiness inside that I simply cannot ignore, no matter how much I try. There are ghosts from my past wherever I turn; there is no way I can escape from them._

            The basement was totally dark; he moved with the curtains of the bed; the one he sought was lying on the bed, already in the inescapable daytime sleep. He stared down at him again.

            _Ashes. No matter how hard I try, I see nothing else. The world has been burnt to a cinder and I have no reason to live. I have no reason for anything anymore. I go on night after night. I feed on people I don't know. I am darkness; I cannot tell when I am in control anymore. Last week, I tried starving myself, but he took over my body and forced me to drink. The only thing that separates us is that I do not desire to live. He seeks life with a desperation I find fascinating._

            He smelled the aroma of roses in the room; black petals were spread across the burgundy sheets. Pegasus was propped against the pillows. Bakura bent down toward Pegasus and breathed in his scent.

            _Yes, I live without the sunlight. I find that now I do not have it I know how much I didn't need it in the first place. The last sunset haunts my memories. I have nightmares about the sun setting. I see strange people, strange places. None of it makes any sense. _

_            It is futile to resist the dark passion that drives me._

            Their lips pressed together in a passionate kiss. The cloaked angel drew back, his chocolate eyes drinking in the last look at Pegasus.

            _Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if it had never passed to me. I remember it vividly now. I was attacked after dark. I thought my darkness had rescued me. I thought he showed me some mercy for a change. Everything in my past day-walker life seems like a nightmare. I didn't think he was real until that night I started to draw away from the sun._

_            The dark angel was drawn into the dust again. It coated his hair and his eyelashes. His cloak was wrapped around him as he walked through it to the room he slept in; he had boarded up the windows and stolen a coffin from the cemetery. There were two corpses lying in the cellar from when his darkness had been in charge. He flirted with his victims before killing them. He enjoyed the chase more than the kill._

            _Fortune is as variable as the moon. It whips you when you fall and destroys you when you soar. I crave not immortality. I was drawn into this against my will. There is nothing I can do about what I am; why should I try to change what I have become?_

            Now, he was perched upon a darkened building. He melded with the stone statues. Gracefully, he jumped down into the crowds. Pale faces, immortals walking among the humans like diamond-foam in the sea. He raised his head and slowly walked toward the boy in blue. The boy was staring at him with a look of disbelief.

            _What would they think if they knew there were monsters in their midst?_

            "What do you see?"

            _Monsters are not creatures like the hydra._

            The boy's lips parted but he did not speak.

            _We feel love and hate. We know pain._

            "You stare at my pale hair, the sheen to my skin that cannot possibly be natural."

            _Monsters…_

            He looked into the boy's eyes; it made the child swoon. "I can give you a beautiful story." Bakura took the dark blue diary from his jacket coat. It was filled to the brim with what had happened. His beautiful eyes stared at it for several seconds.

            Bakura pressed it into the college kid's hands. His hands traced the cover and he looked at the white-haired angel mutely. 

            _…are just like everybody else…_

            The boy sat down in the near-empty lounge. He opened the cover of the book. It was written in English.

            "_I am a vampire, but I was not always so. My name is Ryou Bakura…"_

_            The Reaper of the Cards saw the young vampire one night. He was trying his best to pose for a mortal, but she could see right through him. She walked up to him and looked into his eyes._

            "Are you happy?" she asked him.

            He looked at her, immediately trusting the strange woman. "I don't know. Happiness is not easily found, but I suppose I am better off than most." Ever since he had gotten rid of that diary, a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

            She smiled. "That's all I need to know." The woman turned to leave.

            "Wait…" 

            "Yes?"

            "Thank you."

            His eyes flew over the words like lightning. He had never, ever read something that conveyed so much power in just the first paragraph. Every word was carefully chosen. The writer had obviously mastered the language. As a major in journalism, he was very impressed.

            "_And maybe, just maybe, there is someone out there who will understand…"_


	10. Teaser of Part II: If Angels Should Fall

AUTHORESS'S NOTE: The story, _The Light in the Dark, is the first story in a couple I plan to write. The next story is about Pegasus more than anyone else, mainly because I love the guy so much *glomp* even if he is a demented psycho. As a warning, this story pairs Pegasus with a lot of different people. Sadly, I could not put Bakura in this. Shadi will be introduced in this one. Midnight Blue will be returning, and you'll catch a glimpse into the illusion of the blissful seconds Pegasus shared with Cynthia. I know the ending of __The Light in the Dark seemed a tad fast, but it's not really the end of what is going on. This story is going to have a lot more torture in it than the last one. This is not an advertisement, but a little tiny morsel to keep everyone's imaginations running. Unless I suddenly cease to exist for whatever reason, the story will go on. Thank you. Forward, MARCH! _

P.S. Don't own "Yu-Gi-Oh."

*darkness, total blackness, then a tiny smoke*

**_There are cold iron bars that surround my heart, their power growing as my last chance of escape dwindles..._**

*the darkness reveals a book, covered in dust. Someone blows the dust off and opens the cover; the scratching of a pen*

**_My name is Maxamillion Pegasus._**

*a long hallway, portraits on the walls screaming, a strange figure in the window with mist curling around it, then the wailing of a newborn boy*

**_It is the year 1805. _**

*the walls of a cell are visible, a hunched form cowering in the only light there is, his white hair almost to his waist; the scratching of a pen continues*

**_These are the last words that I am to write._**

*flashes of scenes, a girl dancing in the meadows, coming out of the water of a moonlight swim* *a boy, obviously young Pegasus, is sitting in a tree*

*there is a long, high-pitched scream and an American-sounding Pegasus (without the accent he has in the movies) screams "Urania!"*

What if you lost faith in all you hold dear...? 

"Oh, God help me!"

*see the outline of a figure in the shadows, Shadi*

"What God is that?"

*cut to him kissing a girl with brown hair, their eyes closed*

**_I asked my brothers to smuggle paint into the house for me…_**

*the cry of a baby* *a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes looks up at a seventeen-year-old Pegasus* *the midwife wraps the baby in a towel* "You have a son."

"Cerberus Maximum Pegasus."

*cut to the dead stare of the body of the girl, her form ravaged by illness that overtook her soon after she gave birth to the children*

What if...

*he cries out her name softly, "Cynthia."*

... it was only the beginning?

*really loud carnival music comes; it is really dark and evil-sounding*

*fangs are driven into Pegasus's neck and he screams at the top of his lungs* *flash to a young boy with wavy black hair down to his shoulders and eyes like Pegasus's, only slightly redder*

*Pegasus hanging from a wall by his wrists, the metal cutting into his arms* 

*a blue-haired, blue-eyed vampire circles a kneeling Pegasus on the floor*

"You drink death in a red gush and paint that life in your pictures."

"I paint what I see."

"Then you are mad!" *he strikes Pegasus, who lies there like a dove with broken wings* *he coughs up blood*

"Forgive me."

*he's led into a room to Shadi, who reveals a glittering gold object* "Take out his eye."

"Which one?"

"It doesn't matter."

*Pegasus screams at the top of his lungs* *everything goes black*

What if the world's sole mission was to break you...?

*Pegasus standing in front of his mortal son, now about fifteen* "Do you want it?"

"No matter what price, who would not want to be forever young?" *it fades away in red*

*blackness, then a small outline*

"You'll break eventually."

*blood starts dripping*

"I can see it in your eyes."

*blood dripping from Pegasus's lips onto his son's upturned face*

"Welcome to Hell."

*a hiss from Pegasus, his fangs bared; blood is streaming down his hands*

*total darkness again*

**_...and there was blood all over the walls..._**

If Angels Should Fall

_Rated R_

_The authoress doesn't own anything from Yu-Gi-Oh._

_Review if you want the teaser made into a feature-length story._


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